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referring now to fig1 a to 4 b , an implant system according to a first embodiment of the present invention will be described . the implant system includes a prosthesis support in the form of the combination of an abutment 10 illustrated in fig1 a and 1 b and a collar member 30 illustrated in fig2 a and 2 b ; and an implant 46 illustrated in fig3 a and 3 b . fig4 a and 4 b illustrate the assembly of the prosthesis support and the implant 46 . turning now more specifically to fig1 a and 1 b , the abutment 10 includes an external member defined by an abutment head 12 of a frusto - conical shape , adjacent to a junction segment 14 which is connected to a projection 16 of a substantially polygonal shape . the projection 16 of the abutment 10 is adjacent to an elongated post 18 . the abutment head 12 , the segment 14 , the projection 16 and the post 18 may be integrally made of a single piece of material . the abutment 10 includes a central throughbore 19 which spans the entire length of the abutment 10 starting from a surface 20 of the abutment head 12 and ending at a surface 22 of the post 18 . the abutment head 12 starts from surface 20 and downwardly and outwardly extends until the junction segment 14 is reached . the junction segment 14 is illustrated as having a substantially cylindrical shape ending with a flat surface connected to the projection 16 . the projection 16 is also connected to the post 18 . the abutment head 12 , junction segment 14 , projection 16 and post 18 are coaxial and parallel to the abutment central axis 26 . fig1 b , better illustrates projection 16 which is shown as being generally pentagonal . fig2 a and 2 b illustrate the collar member 30 which has a generally toroidal shape when seen from a top view . the collar member 30 starts with a substantially planar top surface 32 having a downwardly and outwardly extending flange 34 and continues with a downwardly and inwardly curved section 36 . the curved section 36 ends with a shoulder 38 which is connected to a cylindrical section 40 . the collar member 30 is illustrated has having a passage 42 therethrough . as will be clear from the following description , the collar member may take other shapes such that one side may be higher than the opposite side ( a contoured collar member ). fig3 a and 3 b illustrate the implant 46 which is configured and sized to be used with the abutment 10 of fig1 a and 1 b and the collar member 30 of fig2 a and 2 b as will be further described . the implant 46 has a generally elongated tubular body extending about a central longitudinal axis 48 and is defined by a head section 50 , a root section 52 and a generally tapered section 56 . the sections 50 , 52 and 56 are being integrally made of a single piece of material . the head section 50 becomes the elongated root section 52 which is generally tubular as will be described hereinbelow . the elongated root section 52 is shown has having threads 54 on its outer surface ( shown in fig3 b ). the purpose of the threads 54 will be described hereinbelow . the elongated root section 52 ends with an inwardly and downwardly tapered section 56 having a rounded tip 62 defining a closed end of the implant 46 . the open end 64 of implant 46 has two shoulder portions 66 and 67 , having a substantially cylindrical shape and a substantially pentagonal shape , respectively , as can be better seen in fig3 b . these shoulder portions further extend into a central bore 68 . the central bore 68 downwardly extends and ends with a tapered section 70 . the inner surface of the implant 70 includes a threaded portion 72 , the purpose of which will be described hereinbelow . as can be better seen from fig3 b , the shoulder portion 66 is so configured and sized as to receive the cylindrical section 40 of the collar member 30 . similarly the shoulder portion 67 is so configured and sized as to receive the projection 16 of the abutment . fig4 a and 4 b , illustrate the assembled implant system according to a first embodiment of the present invention . the abutment 10 is shown sitting onto the collar member 30 and inserted into the implant 46 . fig4 b is a top view of the implant system of fig4 a , showing the substantially circular shape of each of the component of the implant system , when seen from a top view . as may be glanced from fig4 a , the junction segment 14 of the abutment is so configured and shaped to fit the passage 42 of the collar member 30 . in addition , the projection 16 and post 18 of the abutment 10 are configured and sized to fit the shoulder portion 67 and the central bore 68 of the implant 46 , respectively . furthermore , the cylindrical portion 40 of the collar member is also configured and sized to fit with the shoulder portion 66 of the implant . this type of configuration of each of the component insures stability and easy installation of the implant system of the invention . furthermore , as may be seen from fig4 a , flange 34 of the collar member 30 extends beyond the base of the abutment head 12 . flange 34 thus serves as a base for supporting a dental prosthesis . fig5 a illustrates a cover screw 80 used during one of the installation step of the implant system . the cover screw 80 is shown has having a substantially flat head 82 which is connected to a threaded post 83 . fig5 b illustrates the cover screw secured to the implant 46 of fig3 a and 3 b . as may be seen from fig5 b the head 82 of the cover screw 80 sits on top of the open end 64 of the implant and therefore provides a seal of the central bore 68 . fig6 a illustrates a healing screw 84 which is also used during one of the installation step of the implant system of the invention . the head 86 of the healing screw 84 has a cylindrical section 88 and a curved section 90 and is connected to a threaded post 92 . the curved section 90 of the healing screw mimics the curved section 36 of the collar member 30 of fig2 a and 2 b . fig6 b illustrates the healing screw secured over the implant 46 . the healing screw 84 also provides a seal of the central bore 68 . fig7 a to 7 d , illustrate bottom views of abutments 10 having a projection 16 of varying shape according to other embodiments of the present invention . fig7 a is a bottom view of the abutment of fig1 a . fig7 a better illustrates the pentagonal shape of projection 16 . for purpose of concision , fig7 b to 7 d will be described only with respect to their differences relative to fig7 a . as may be seen , fig7 b illustrates an abutment 10 having a projection 16 of a hexagonal shape . fig7 c illustrates an abutment 10 having a projection 16 of a substantially cylindrical shape and further having an aligning means 92 in the form of a ridge . fig7 d illustrates an abutment 10 having a projection of an irregular shape . the installation of the implant system of fig4 a and 4 b may proceed as follows . first , the oral surgeon access the patient &# 39 ; s jawbone through the patient &# 39 ; s gum tissue and remove any remains of the tooth to be replaced . next , the anchoring site where the implant 46 is to be installed may be widened to accommodate the implant 46 . the implant 46 is inserted into the jawbone , typically by screwing it with the help of the its external threads 54 , although other methods may be used . it is to be noted that it may be useful to install the implant so that one side of the projection 16 ( e . g ., when polygonal ) is parallel with either face ( external or internal ) of the gum . this may facilitate the surgeon &# 39 ; s work as it may provide a point of reference for subsequent alignment of the abutment 10 . the cover screw 80 is secured on top of the implant 46 by screwing the threaded post 83 into the implant 46 using the internally threaded portion 72 of the central bore 68 . the patient &# 39 ; s gum is then sutured over the sealed implant 46 . tissue ingrowth ( i . e ., ossointegration ) is allowed to take place for about 3 to 8 months . the external threads 54 help in stabilizing and anchoring the implant 46 into the bone and / or minimize rotation of the implant 46 with respect to the bone once tissue ingrowth is achieved . once the implant 46 is firmly anchored in the surrounding bone tissue and the bone has healed , the surgeon re - accesses the implant 46 by making an incision through the patient &# 39 ; s gum tissue . the cover screw 80 is removed and a healing screw 84 is installed by screwing its threaded post 92 in to the implant 46 . within the next few days or weeks the gum tissue will heal and will surround the healing screw 84 mainly at the level of its curved section 90 . the cylindrical section 88 of the healing screw 84 extends further from the gum line . the configuration of the healing screw 84 allows the gum to take an appropriate shape for later installation of the collar member 30 and abutment 10 . more particularly , since both the curved section 90 of the healing screw 84 and the curved section 36 of the collar member 30 have a similar configuration the gum will heal leaving an area which will adequately receive the collar member 30 . once the gum has healed , the healing screw 84 is removed and the collar member 30 is installed onto the implant 46 or alternatively assembled with the abutment 10 . the abutment 10 is then aligned with the implant 46 and inserted in a substantially linear translation movement . as will be clear from the description and drawings , the assembly of the implant system may be carried in more than one way . for example , the abutment may first be inserted into the collar member &# 39 ; s passage and second being joined , by a substantially linear translation insertion , with the implant . alternatively , the collar member may be positioned onto the implant and the abutment may then be inserted through the collar member &# 39 ; s passage and into the implant central bore by a substantially linear translation insertion . the assembly of the abutment 10 and collar member 30 is of the tight fit type . once the abutment 10 is shaped to the required configuration , using the direct or indirect technique which will be described hereinbelow , it may be permanently fixed to the implant 46 by the mordancy technique . for example , the post 18 of the abutment 10 may be acid etched . a composite cement may be inserted into the implant &# 39 ; s central bore 68 ( e . g ., before assembling the prosthesis support with the implant ) and both pieces are subsequently joined . the composite cement may thereafter be cured to insure a permanent fixation . as discussed herein , the threaded surface 72 serves to attach the cover screw , the healing screw ( healing cup ) and the impression copying . however , the threaded surface 72 also permits here a mechanical retention of the abutment 10 with the implant 46 during cementation . the central throughbore 19 of the abutment 10 allows the air under pressure and surplus sealing mordancy to escape the bore 68 upon assembly . the collar member 30 may be held between the abutment 10 and implant 46 without additional attachment . therefore , the assembly and fixation mechanism of the implant system does not require the use of a screwing member , e . g ., a separate screw or integral threaded post . a permanent fixation between the two components is thus provided and the use of a discrete fastener , such as a screw is avoided . the dimensions of the junction segment 14 , projection 16 and post 18 may be slightly smaller than the dimensions of the shoulder portions 66 , 67 and central bore 68 . assembly of post 18 and central bore 68 is of the clearance fit type . assembly of the projection 16 and shoulder portion 67 is of the slide fit type . a shock absorbing gap may thus be provided by the empty spaces between the abutment 10 , collar member 30 and implant 46 surfaces . this arrangement may allow the abutment 10 to flex slightly relative to the implant 46 as it is submitted to chewing forces . the materials which are suitable for the implant system of the present invention , include those described hereinbelow . the abutment may be made from a material compatible with the cad / cam milling procedures and system and also compatible with hand operated dentistry tools such as chisels , milling machines , trimmers , etc . cad / cam systems are composed of a data acquisition and analysis unit as well as a machine that is able to shape machinable pieces based on a 3d model . dental material that may be used with the cad / cam system are known in the art . these include for example , ceramics and highly filled composite material such as the following : 3m * paradigm * mz100 block for cerec ; 85 wt % ultrafine zirconia - silica ceramic particles that reinforce a highly crosslinked polymeric matrix . the polymer matrix consists of bisphenol a diglycidyl ether dimethacrylate and triethylene glycol dimethacrylate . vita mark ii vitabloc for cerec ; this product is manufactured from fine particles of dental ceramics with wear characteristics similar to natural tooth enamel . this product has a homogenous microstructure and a flexural strenght of about 160 mpa . lithium disilicate for cad / cam ( jeneric pentron , usa ); this material is similar to opc 3g ( jeneric pentron , usa ) and comprises about 60 % of interlocked needle - shaped lithium disilicate crystals embedded into alumino - borosilicate glass matrix and possesses a resistance to cleavage of about 300 mpa . ips empress * 2 ; leucite - reinforced ceramic pressable containing latent nucleating agents . the leucite - reinforced ceramic powder is pressed into ingots and sintered . * trademark other material which may be used to make the abutment of the implant system include : vita zeta hc composite or vita zeta heat cure composite , vitapress , ivoclar procad blocks ( this material is also reinforced with leucite particles ). a variety of highly filled composite material may be suitable for the abutment of the present invention . such highly filled composite materials may have , for example , the following characteristics : a composition comprising between 50 and 98 % ( w / w ) of solid substrate , e . g ., between 50 and 95 % of solid substrate or for example , between 50 and 90 % of solid substrate ; a density of between 2 . 0 and 3 . 8 g / cm 3 ; a flexural strength of between 100 and 600 mpa , for example between 100 and 450 mpa . generally , the material used for the abutment 10 may be chosen based with a flexural strength which is similar to or slightly lower than the flexural strength of the implant 46 ; a young &# 39 ; s modulus of between 4 and 200 gpa ; a flexural modulus of between 4 and 40 gpa ; a fracture toughness of between 0 . 6 and 1 . 5 gpa ; and / or a compressive strength of between 300 and 900 mpa . when a highly filled composite material is used for the abutment 10 , the aesthetic appearance ( desired color , translucence ) of the tooth prosthesis is improved . for example , the shade or color may be selected according to the color of the surrounding tooth or teeth which is not possible for metallic abutments . in addition , an abutment made from a highly filled composite material may be fixed to the implant by the mordancy technique which may prove difficult when using metallic components . furthermore , fixation of the tooth prosthesis ( e . g . porcelain ) is more easily achieved . according to embodiments of the present invention , the implant 46 may be made from a material allowing ossointegration , more particularly , a material such as titanium , titanium alloy , gold , zirconium oxide , aluminum oxide , ceramics , i . e ., bio - ceramics ( e . g ., zircon ceramics ), or other biocompatible material also according to embodiments of the present invention the collar member 30 may be made , for example , from a material such as titanium , titanium alloy , gold , zirconiumi oxide , or ceramics ( e . g ., zircon ceramics ). since the collar member is in close contact with the gum tissue , the use of zirconium oxide or zircon ceramics has been found to minimize the risk of bacteria growth , decrease tartar formation and increase the esthetic and optical quality of the dental fixture ( shade , translucency ). ceramics used to make the collar member may include , for example , a ceramic made from aluminum oxide , zirconium oxide and the like as well as combination thereof . such ceramics may have , for example , the following characteristics ; a density of between 2 . 4 and 6 . 2 g / cm 3 ( e . g ., 2 . 4 , 3 . 8 , 3 . 9 , 4 , 5 . 8 , 6 . 1 , etc . ); an elastic modulus of between 100 and 380 gpa ( e . g ., 104 ± 4 , 350 ± 20 , 370 ± 20 , 360 ± 20 , 200 ± 20 , etc . ); a poisson &# 39 ; s ratio of between 0 . 22 and 0 . 34 ( e . g ., 0 . 22 , 0 . 23 , 0 . 30 , 0 . 34 , etc . ); a flexural strength of between 200 and 1600 mpa ( e . g ., 300 ± 30 , 400 ± 20 , 700 ± 20 , 900 ± 30 1200 ± 20 , etc . ); a fracture toughness of between 2 and 15 mpa × m ½ ( e . g ., 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 9 , 13 , 15 , etc .) a hardness of between 6 and 15 gpa ( e . g ., 6 , 7 , 12 . 8 , 13 . 2 , 13 . 6 , 14 . 2 , 14 . 6 , 15 , etc .) and / or cte ( coefficient of thermal expansion ) of between 9 and 11 10 − 6 ×° c . − 1 ( e . g ., 10 . 3 ( from 25 ° c . to 1000 ° c . ), 8 ( from 25 ° c . to 1000 ° c . ), etc .). two restorative options are possible using the implant system of the present invention , especially when a highly filled composite material is used to make the abutment ( i . e ., a material having the machinability advantages ( properties ) of a direct restorative material and those of an indirect restorative material ): a direct restorative technique : a dentist may shape the abutment to fit the required configuration directly in the patient &# 39 ; s mouth for subsequent installation of the prosthetic tooth . it is possible to add or remove material from the abutment . this technique does not require impression coping or an impression copying . for example , material may be added or removed from the abutment head 12 depending on the shape , dimension and angularity ( with respect to the implant or post ) needed by the patient and determined by the dentist . the dentist therefore machines the abutment head 12 ( e . g ., using traditional dentistry tools ) of the abutment 10 to fit with the prosthesis . the prosthesis is subsequently installed . an indirect restorative technique : a dentist may take an impression of the patient &# 39 ; s mouth using the impression copying ( analogue system ) described herein and the abutment may be sent to an outside laboratory which will shape the abutment to the required configuration ( e . g ., using a cad / cam system ) based on the impression . the installation of the shaped abutment is thus performed as a separate step . the prosthesis is subsequently installed . the indirect approach requires more chair time . abutments 10 , according to embodiments of the present invention may be provided with different shapes and dimensions such as , for example oval ( e . g ., when seen from a top view ), circular , rectangular , frusto - conical , square or even irregular shapes may be used . the same applies for collar members 30 and implants 46 . for example , the abutment 10 , the collar member 30 and the implant 46 may be provided in a variety of sizes suitable for either lateral , central , cuspid and bicuspid teeth and for molars or suitable for the specific needs of an individual . the dimensions of the curved section 36 of the collar member 30 may vary to accommodate various tissue heights . also , the junction segment 14 of the abutment may be tapering inwardly and downwardly toward the post . therefore , any variation in shape , length , diameter , width , angularity etc . of any component or any individual part of a component of the implant system , impression copying , screws ( cover , screw , healing screw , screw of the impression copying ) of the present invention are encompassed herein . as another example , the projection 16 may take any other shapes than the pentagonal shape illustrated in fig1 b . the projection may have any other suitable polygonal shape ( e . g ., hexagonal , etc . ), oval shape or even an irregular shape . implant system having projection 16 which tapers inwardly and downwardly are also encompassed by the present invention . whatever the shape and size of the projection 16 it would be preferable to provide an implant 46 with a matching shoulder 67 . it may be preferable to have a projection 16 with a low number of sides ( e . g ., a three - sided polygon , a five - sided polygon , a seven - sided polygon ) for allowing alignment of the abutment 10 with the implant 46 in a limited number of positions . it may also be useful to have a projection 16 with an uneven number of sides . as will easily be understood by one skilled in the art , the projection 16 only allows alignment of the abutment 10 with the implant 46 in a limited number of positions , five in the case of fig1 a and fig1 b . alignment is performed by positioning the abutment 10 onto the implant 46 in such a way that the shape of the projection 16 of the abutment 10 is matched and fitted into the shouldered portion 67 of the implant 46 . the projection 16 also prevents rotation of the abutment 10 with respect to the implant 46 . the expression “ limited number of positions ” is to be understood herein as the number of possible positions for inserting the abutment into the implant , this number being , for example preferably below 20 possible positions , more preferably below 10 possible positions . it is also understood herein , that an abutment having a substantially circular shaped projection 16 , may also serve for aligning the abutment with the implant , provided that the projection 16 would have one or more additional aligning means as illustrated by ridge 92 in fig7 c . such additional aligning means may be , for example , selected from the group consisting of a protrusion , a notch , a ridge , a concave structure , a convex structure , a tapered structure , a pin , and combinations thereof . therefore , the aligning means would also partially block or minimize rotation . of course , in the event a projection 16 would have aligning means 92 ( as illustrated in fig7 c ), the shoulder portion 67 would also be configured to match it , e . g ., in a male - female type of structure ( not illustrated ). turning now to fig8 a , 8 b and 8 c , an implant system 100 according to another embodiment of the present invention will be described . it is to be noted that the implant system 100 of these figures is very similar to the implant system illustrated in fig1 a to 6 b . therefore , for concision purposes , only the differences between these implant systems will be described hereinbelow . the main difference between the implant system 100 and the implant system described hereinabove is that the abutment head 112 of the abutment 110 is substantially oval ( when seen from a top view ). in addition , the collar member 130 is also illustrated as having an oval shape . those dimensions may be useful , for example , for an implant installed in place of a cuspid or bicuspid tooth . a position that the implant system may held once installed in the mouth of an individual is suggested in fig8 a and fig8 b where v is the vestibular side , d is the distal side , m is the mouth side and l is the lingual side . other positions may be assumed depending on the need of the patient . fig9 of the appended drawings illustrates an implant system 200 , according to a third embodiment of the present invention . again , only the differences between the implant system 200 and the implant system described hereinabove with reference to fig1 a to 6 b will be described . in fig9 , the collar member 230 is illustrated has having one of its side higher than the opposite side . this type of implant system or collar member 230 is referred as being contoured . accordingly the abutment 210 , more particularly the abutment head 212 and the junction segment 214 , is adapted to fit with the contoured collar member . this type of system may be particularly useful for substantially circular or substantially square teeth , such as a molar , especially when one side of the gum tissue is higher than the opposite side ( e . g ., lingual v mouth ). an implant system 300 , according to a fourth embodiment of the present invention will now be described with reference to fig1 a , 10 b and 10 c . as shown in fig1 b , the collar member 330 is contoured as the collar member 230 of fig9 . in addition , the collar member 330 and the abutment 310 illustrated in fig1 a , 10 b and 10 c have a substantially oval shape . again , the abutment 310 , more particularly the abutment head 312 and the junction segment 314 , is configured to match the collar member 330 . this type of system may be particularly useful for oval teeth , such as a cuspid or bicuspid tooth , especially when one side of the gum tissue is higher than the opposite side ( e . g ., lingual v mouth ). a position that the implant system may held once installed in the mouth of an individual is suggested in fig1 a and fig1 b where v is the vestibular side , d is the distal side , m is the mouth side and l is the lingual side . other positions may be assumed depending on the need of the patient . fig1 a , 11 b and 11 c illustrate implant systems 400 , 500 , and 600 respectively according to additional embodiments of the present invention . in fig1 a , 11 b and 11 c , the collar members 430 , 530 and 630 are of the contoured type . however , the top surface of each abutment is at an angle with respect to the implant central longitudinal axis . the abutment 410 and more particularly the abutment head 412 of fig1 a is shown with an angle of approximately 18 ° with respect to the central longitudinal axis 448 ( as well as with respect to the post 418 ). the abutment 510 and more particularly the abutment head 512 of fig1 b is shown with an angle of approximately 23 ° with respect to the central longitudinal axis 548 ( as well as with respect to the post 518 ). the abutment 610 and more particularly the abutment head 612 of fig1 c is shown with an angle of approximately 30 ° with respect to the central longitudinal axis 648 ( as well as with respect to the post 618 ). more particularly angles of between 15 ° and 35 ° ( or − 15 ° to − 35 °) are encompassed by the present invention . these types of implant system may be required depending on the specific needs of an individual which is easily determined by the dentist . of course , the length , shape ( oval v circular ) size may vary as described herein . turning now to fig1 a and 12 b of the appended drawings , an impression copying 700 , compatible with the implant 46 will be described . the impression copying 700 comprises an elongated section 702 , a curved section 704 and a cylindrical section 706 . the impression copying 700 has a channel 708 passing therethrough . the impression copying 700 possesses , on its external face 710 , substantially horizontal grooves 712 and substantially vertical grooves 713 which are found on the elongated section 708 . the curved section 704 of the impression copying mimics the curved section 36 of the collar member 30 illustrated in fig2 a and 2 b . the cylindrical section 706 of the impression copying 700 mimics the cylindrical section 40 of the collar member 30 as also illustrated in fig2 a and 2 b . the impression copying 700 may therefore be installed onto the implant 46 and may be temporarily held in place with the help of an attaching means such as a screw 714 as the one illustrated in fig1 b . the screw 714 of fig1 b has a substantially elongated cylindrical head 716 , a junction segment 718 and a threaded post 720 . each part of the screw 714 matches the corresponding internal dimensions of the impression copying 700 . in use , the impression copying 700 is installed onto the implant 46 and secured with the help of a screw 714 . an impression is then taken around the impression copying 700 , using for example , a silicone material , such as an addition - curing silicone impression material , a condensation curing silicone impression material , etc . the impression copying 700 may afterward be removed . the laboratory uses the resulting impression to form a prosthetic tooth . the silicone impression will carry impressed threads matching grooves 712 and 713 which will therefore reflect the initial position of the impression copying 700 in the patient &# 39 ; s mouth . it is to be understood herein that an implant system having one or more of the individual characteristics described herein is encompassed by the present invention . for example , an implant system having an oval shaped implant , a contoured and oval shaped collar member and an oval shaped angled abutment is also encompassed by the present invention . similarly , any of the individual characteristics in any implant system &# 39 ; s components or any component &# 39 ; s part may be mixed to provide a desired implant system in accordance with the present invention . it may be advantageous in some instance to manufacture a collar member and abutment in a single piece . however , one main advantage of providing two distinct pieces is that both pieces may be made from distinct material as described herein . the different components of the implant system ( abutment , collar member , implant , which may include a cover screw and a healing screw ) and impression copying ( when required ) may be provided in separate pieces to the dentist or as a standard set of defined dimensions . it may also be useful to have an abutment with the characteristics described herein specifically designed to be used with prior art implant . in addition , a separate implant having the characteristics described herein is also encompassed by the present invention . other variations of the invention encompassed by the present invention include the following . for example , the elongated post 18 of the abutment may be provided with a tapered section at its tip . a tapered section may generally increase the flow of mordancy upon fixation of the abutment 10 to the implant 46 . also , the tip 62 of the implant 46 , illustrated in the appended figures as being rounded may be more pointed as illustrated in fig8 a and 8 b or may have other configuration . in addition , it may be useful to provide a collar member having a threaded passage . this may facilitate assembly of the abutment and collar member when , for example , their assembly is required or preferable prior to their installation onto the implant . a prior assembly of an abutment and a collar member may be useful , for example , to prevent lost of one of the component or may facilitate their distribution to the customer . although the present invention has been described in details herein and illustrated in the accompanying drawings , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments described herein and that various changes and modifications may be effected without departing from the scope or spirit of the present invention .	0
in fig1 a person 10 is shown as having fallen overboard from a vessel 12 into water 14 . in this event , the person is shown as having a portable transmitter unit 16 , embodying the invention , which is attached to a name tag to his shirt . as will be more fully described , the attached unit transmits ultrasonic sound waves 18 through the water to a receiving unit 20 carried by the vessel for actuating a rescue - initiating mechanism 22 . mechanism 22 may comprise any number of alarm devices such as an audible alarm or a remote display . it may also actuate such life - saving devices as a flotation device and a marker buoy including a strobe light . it may additionally operate to turn the engine off or to steer the vessel in a desired path . all such life - saving devices are well - known , and therefore , are not illustrated . as shown in fig2 and 3 , unit 16 includes a transmitter portion 24 carried within a sleeve 26 whose top and bottom portions 28 are curved around to resiliently press against transmitter portion 24 . such a unit may be carried by means of a name tag 25 , which is shown in fig4 with a pin for attachment to the wearer &# 39 ; s outer garment . alternatively , as shown in fig5 unit 16 may be embodied within a buckle 30 to be worn as part of a belt . other means of attachment will be suggested depending on the attachment needs . as shown in fig3 transmitter portion 24 comprises a printed circuitboard 32 having desired circuitry 34 leading from , for example , a hydrostatic switch 36 to a transducer 38 , fittable within an opening 40 in the printed circuitboard . openings 42 are also provided in the circuitboard for reception of batteries 44 . the transmitter portion as well as the receiving apparatus are shown in greater detail in fig6 . briefly , transmitter unit 16 comprises a digital encoder 46 ( if desired ), an oscillator 48 , and a power amplifier 50 , all connected in series and all connected to battery power supply 44 through hydrostatic switch 36 . upon actuation of hydrostatic switch 36 by the pressure of water , as denoted by arrow 52 , transmitter unit 16 is enabled to cause transmission by transducer 38 to produce ultrasonic sound waves 18 which are transmitted through the water to receiver unit 20 . receiver 20 includes a receiving transducer 53 , a narrow bandwidth amplifier 54 , a detector 56 , all coupled in series , for operating an alarm 58 . although shown as an alarm , substitutions or additional equipment may be added thereto , such as the above - mentioned selection of life - saving devices , apparatus to stop the engine of the vessel , and the like . specifically , transducers 38 and 53 may comprise any convenient material , the preferred including a disc of barium titanate , lead titanate , or lead zirconate . such a transducer is obtainable as model channel 5400 made by channel industries , inc ., of santa barbara , calif . such a disc has a preferred frequency constant of 78 kc / in working in a planar or thickness extensional mode . such a device is capable of operating in the preferred frequency range of 60 and 100 khz . this frequency range is chosen because the ambient noise in the sea and moving vessels are at a minimum between these frequencies . other frequencies may be used if desired and may be necessary in order to prevent interference with any frequency already used by the vessel . the selection of the particular transducer geometry is dependent upon various factors . the most important is that the frequency range is selected where the moving ship &# 39 ; s noise is at a minimum . based upon naval studies , such vessel noises fall off above approximately 50 khz . another important factor relates to the radiation pattern of the signal . both the frequency and the radiation pattern in part are determined by the size of the transducer . as the transducer becomes smaller , its frequency of resonance increases but , with an increase in frequency , the radiation pattern becomes correspondingly narrow . in the use of the present invention , it is preferred to have an omnidirectional pattern for the reason that , when a person falls overboard from a vessel , the person &# 39 ; s movement will cause corresponding movement of the transducer . it is not possible under ordinary circumstances for the person to direct the transmitter toward the vessel . therefore , an omnidirectional pattern at a lesser frequency is preferred . based upon these considerations , the size limitations of the transducer involves some tradeoff between frequency and radiation pattern . generally , the upper limit is 100 khz at which point the radiation pattern becomes more directional than preferred . it is to be understood , of course , that if necessity so dictates , higher frequencies may be utilized . accordingly , the preferred frequency range , based upon the above factors , is between 60 and 100 khz . power amplifier 50 is selected to have an impedance which matches that of the transducer and needs only to provide a greater power output than available from oscillator 48 to overcome any interference , noise , or attenuation . oscillator 48 is designed to create a sinusoidal waveform at the chosen frequency . such a frequency could be chosen for use in notifying a group of vessels in the same geographical area as the person having fallen overboard . such a commonly received frequency would also halp other vessels from hitting the person overboard as well as to aid in the rescue operation . digital encoder 46 is used only if there were a need to identify one or more individuals . such identification might be necessary if the identified person had certain health , age and other problems . in addition , if the overboard condition were caused by vandals or pranksters , identification might be of aid in determining who the culprit might be . each battery in power supply 44 should have a long shelf life , a flat discharge characteristic , and a low internal impedance because the aim and requirement of the battery is to be useful after a long - term storage and to provide a rapid , fast discharge in a period of approximately 1 minute to fully expend the charge of the battery . mercury or lithium batteries are suitable for these purposes . the power rating of the battery is , of necessity , associated with the power amplifier , which drives the transducer with approximately 10 - 15 watts of power . switch 36 is preferred to be of a hydrostatic type so that it may be initiated by fresh or salt water pressure and is designed to prevent pranksters and vandals from throwing unit 16 into the water and , therefore , from falsely sounding the alarm . thus , it is required that the unit have a positive buoyancy where the switch will not be closed , but will respond to a specific pressure exerted by a depth of water where the switch can be closed . such buoyancy may be obtained by fabricating the housing or unit enclosure of a high density foam material , e . g ., urethane foam of 7 pounds per cubic foot density . as shown in fig3 the hydrostatic switch includes a diaphragm 60 which is open at one side to water pressure through an orifice 62 . by imparting a buoyancy to unit 16 , it is not possible to develop the required water pressure to be exerted upon diaphragm 60 , unless the transmitter unit were attached to a person . at that point , the unit would be sufficiently submerged to permit a larger pressure to move the diaphragm into a switch - closing position . once the transmitter unit is actuated , it is desired that it latch to remain transmitting so that , when a person is flailing and thrashing around in the water , the transmitter will not switch on and off but will remain on . this may be achieved in several ways such as by permanently deforming the diaphragm by the exerted pressure , or by coating a pair of switch surfaces with electrically conductive adhesive so that , when contact is made therebetween , they adhere together . another desired requirement is that there be delay of about 1 second before the transmitter is activated and latched , again to avoid problems relating to pranksterism and vandalism . this requirement is achieved by restricting the orifice at 62 through which the water enters . a further method of achieving latching and delay is to utilize a silicon controlled recitifier and capacitor which are associated with gate circuitry . as stated above , the ultrasonic sound waves are received by receiver 20 and its transducer 53 whose requirements are the same as transmitting transducer 38 . amplifier 54 is preferably of a narrow band type to exclude noise and signals of other frequencies and to prevent spurious alarms . thus , reception of a weak signal is optimized . detector 56 causes a switch to close upon receipt of a signal from amplifier 54 and causes a relay to close and to actuate alarm 58 , to eject life - saving devices , to stop the engines , etc . it may be desirable to provide a very brief delay , e . g ., 250 milliseconds , in the actuation of the relay by means of an appropriate rc network . such a delay will prevent spurious actuation of the alarm device due to impulse noises normally occurring in the sea . detector 56 , amplifier 54 and transducer 20 may be prepared from a standard semiconductor chip , such as obtained from national semiconductor , chip no . lm1812 . a decoder may be incorporated at the receiving end to decode any digital information developed by encoder 46 to identify the particular party in the water . the signal from detector 56 may also be used to stop the engine of the vessel , especially if it is a one - man boat . it is also possible to use the signal to prevent the boat from moving away from the person having fallen into the water . it is also desirable to have the receiver latch on upon receipt of the signal and to provide a manual reset for the receiver . referring now to fig7 a diver 70 , particularly a scuba diver , is shown to be in need of rescue while underwater . rescue may be initiated by means of a device 72 , which is similar to that previously described . specifically , device 70 differs from portable transmitter unit 16 in that it utilizes a manually actuable switch instead of hydrostatic switch 36 . additionally , a marker buoy exemplified as a balloon 74 is inflated by actuation of the manually operated switch acting on a compressed gas cartridge 76 incorporated in unit 70 . marker buoy 74 may also comprise a flare , smoke or dye . since a cord 78 secures marker 74 to the diver , he can be readily located by his rescuers . as before , notice of his dilemma is transmitted to a vessel , such as vessel 12 of fig1 by ultrasonic waves 80 and , if desired , audible signals 82 may also be initiated for transmission directly to neighboring divers . although the invention has been described with reference to a particular embodiment thereof , it should be realized that various changes and modifications may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention .	7
now , the present invention will be described in greater detail by referring to the accompanying drawing that illustrates preferred embodiment of the invention . fig2 is a schematic block diagram of the first embodiment of multi - value flash memory according to the invention , illustrating its overall configuration ; referring to fig2 , a plurality of flash memory cells , a plurality of bit lines and a plurality of word lines are arranged in the memory cell array 1 . the flash memory cells are arranged in the form of a matrix . a column control circuit 2 and a row control circuit 3 are arranged adjacently relative to the memory cell array 1 . the column control circuit 2 controls the bit lines in the memory cell array 1 for erasing data from , writing data into and reading data from memory cells . the row control circuit 3 is used for selecting a word line in the memory cell array 1 and supplying a voltage necessary for erasing , writing and reading data . additionally , a source line control circuit 4 for controlling source lines of the memory cell array 1 and a p - well control circuit 5 for controlling the p - type wells for forming the memory cell array 1 are also arranged near the memory cell array 1 . data input / output buffer 6 is connected to a host by way of an external i / o line . the data input / output buffer 6 is adapted to receive data to be written , outputs read out data and receive address data and command data . the data to be written received by the data input / output buffer 6 are forwarded to the column control circuit 2 . the data input / output buffer 6 receives the read out data from the column control circuit 2 . an external address data is sent to the column control circuit 2 and the row control circuit 3 by way of state machine 8 in order to select memory cells in the memory cell array 1 . a command data from the host is sent to command interface 7 . the command interface 7 receives a control signal from the host and determines if the data input to the data input / output buffer 6 is a data to be written , a command data or an address data . if it is a command data , the command interface 7 forwards the command to the state machine 8 as received command signal . the state machine 8 controls the overall operation of the flash memory . it receives a command from the host for controlling the operation of reading data , writing data and erasing data and also controls the data input / output operation . the state machine 8 arranged a write counter pc for counting the number of data writing operations to each of the memory cells . fig3 a is a schematic block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of the memory cell array 1 in fig2 . the memory cells of the memory cell array 1 are divided into a number of blocks block 0 through block 1023 . a block is the smallest unit for an erasing operation . each of the blocks blocki ( i = 0 through 1023 ) includes a total of 8 , 512 nand type memory units as shown in fig3 b . in this embodiment , each of the nand type memory units contains four memory cells m that are connected in series and further to a bit line ble or blo at an end thereof by way of a selection gate s 1 commonly connected to selection gate lines sgd i and to a common source line c - source at the opposite end thereof by way of a selection gate s 2 commonly connected to selection gate lines sgs i . each memory cell m has a control gate , a floating gate , a source and a drain . the control gates of the four memory cell m of each nand type memory unit are commonly connected to the corresponding one of the word lines wl 0 i through wl 3 i . data are independently written into and read out from the even - numbered bit lines ble and the odd - numbered bit lines blo as counted from 0 . data are simultaneously written into or read out from 4 , 256 memory cells connected to the even - numbered bit lines ble out of the 8 , 512 memory cells whose control gates are connected to a single word line wl . when each memory cell stores a 1 - bit data , the 4 , 256 bits data stored in 4 , 256 memory cells constitute a unit of page . thus , when a single memory cell stores a 2 - bit data , the 4 , 256 memory cells store data of two pages . data of other two pages are stored in the 4 , 256 memory cells connected to the odd - numbered bit lines blo . data are written into or read out from the memory cells of a same page simultaneously . fig4 is a schematic cross sectional view of the memory cell array 1 of fig2 taken along the column direction to show the structure of the device . referring to fig4 , an n - type well 11 is formed on a p - type substrate 10 and a p - type well 12 is formed in the n - type well 11 . each memory cell m comprises a source and a drain formed in an n - type diffusion layer 13 , a floating gate fg arranged in a channel region between the source and the drain by way of a tunnel oxide film and a control gate cg arranged on the floating gate fg by way of an insulating film and operating as word line wl . each of the selection gates s 1 , s 2 includes a source and a drain formed in the n - type diffusion layer 13 and a selection gate line sg having a two - layer structure . both the word line wl and the selection gate line sg are connected to the row control circuit 3 in fig2 and controlled by the output signal from the row control circuit 3 . each nand type memory unit including four memory cells m and selection gates s 1 , s 2 is connected at an end thereof to the metal wiring layer m 0 of the first layer by way of a contact hole cb 1 . the metal wiring layer m 0 is connected to the metal wiring layer m 1 of the second layer operating as bit line bl by way of a via hole v 1 . the bit line bl is connected to the column control circuit 2 in fig2 . the nand type memory unit is connected at the other end thereof to the metal wiring layer m 2 of the first layer operating as common source line c - source by way of still another contact hole cb 2 . the common source line c - source is connected to the source line control circuit 4 in fig2 . an n - type diffusion layer 14 is formed on the surface of the n - type well 11 , while a p - type diffusion layer 15 is formed on the surface of the p - type well 12 . both of the n - type diffusion layer 14 and the p - type diffusion layer 15 are connected to the metal wiring layer m 3 of the first layer operating as well line c - p - well by way of respective contact holes cb 3 , cb 4 . the well line c - p - well is connected to the p well control circuit 5 in fig2 . fig5 a and 5b are schematic cross sectional views of the memory cell array 1 taken along the row direction to show the structure of the device . as shown in fig5 a and 5b , each memory cell is isolated from the remaining memory cells by element isolations sti . as shown in fig5 a , in each memory cell , a floating gate fg is laid on a channel region by way of a tunnel oxide film 16 . a word line wl is laid on the floating gate fg by way of an insulating film 17 that is an ono film . as shown in fig5 b , the selection gate line sg has a two - layer structure . the upper layer selection gate line sg and the lower layer selection gate line sg are connected to an end of the memory cell array 1 or a predetermined number of bit lines . fig6 is a schematic block diagram of a principal part of the column control circuit 2 of fig2 , illustrating its configuration . in the column control circuit 2 , a data storage circuit 20 is arranged for every two bit lines including an even - numbered bit line ble and an odd - numbered bit line blo having a same column number . in the column control circuit 2 , a sense amplifier is also arranged for the data storage circuit 20 in order to write data into and read data from memory cells . referring to fig6 , an n - channel mos transistor qn 1 is connected for column selection between the data storage circuit 20 and the even - numbered bit line ble , whereas another n - channel mos transistor qn 2 is connected for column selection between the data storage circuit 20 and the odd - numbered bit line blo . either of the even - numbered bit line ble or the odd - numbered bit line blo connected to each data storage circuit 20 is selected and connected to the data storage circuit 20 to control the operation of writing a data or that of reading a data . more specifically , when signal evenbl is at level h and signal oddbl is at level l , the mos transistor qn 1 is made electrically conductive to select the even - numbered bit line ble , which bit line ble is then connected to the data storage circuit 20 . when , on the other hand , when signal evenbl is at level l and signal oddbl is at level h , the mos transistor qn 2 is made electrically conductive to select the odd - numbered bit line blo , which bit line blo is then connected to the data storage circuit 20 . note that the signal evenbl is supplied to all the n - channel mos transistors for column selection connected to the even - numbered bit lines ble , whereas the signal oddbl is supplied to all the n - channel mos transistors for column selection connected to the odd - numbered bit lines blo . the unselected bit lines bl are controlled by some other circuit ( not shown ). each data storage circuit 20 includes three binary data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 , ds 3 , of which the data storage section ds 1 is connected to the data input / output buffer 6 by way of an internal data input / output line ( i / o line ) and stores an externally input data to be written or a read out data to be externally output , while the data storage section ds 2 stores the detection outcome of a write verify operation for confirming the threshold value of a memory cell after a write operation and the data storage section ds 3 temporarily stores the data of a memory cell at the time of writing it and at the time of reading it . fig7 is a graph illustrating the relationship between a multi - valued data and the threshold value of a memory cell of the first embodiment of multi - value flash memory according to the invention . now , the operation of the embodiment of multi - valued flash memory according to the invention and having the above described configuration will be described below by referring to fig7 . assume that each memory cell of this embodiment is adapted to store two bits or a four - valued data . it will be appreciated that a 2 - bit data is “ 11 ”, “ 10 ”, “ 01 ” or “ 00 ”. the two bits belong respectively to different row addresses ( different pages ). a four - valued data is stored in a memory cell with different threshold values . referring to fig7 , assume that a data showing the lowest threshold value ( e . g ., the threshold voltage is negative ) represents “ 11 ” and a data , showing the second lowest threshold value ( e . g ., the threshold voltage is positive ) represents “ 10 ”, while a data showing the third lowest threshold value ( e . g ., the threshold voltage is positive ) represents “ 01 ” and a data showing the highest threshold value ( e . g ., the threshold voltage is positive ) represents “ 00 ”. after an erasing operation , the data in the memory cell is “ 11 ”. if the data of the lower order page written into this memory cell is “ 0 ”, the state of the memory cell shifts from “ 11 ” to “ 10 ” as a result of the writing operation . if the data written into this memory cell is “ 1 ”, the state of the memory cell remains to be “ 11 ”. then , the data of the higher order page is written into the memory cell . if the written data is “ 1 ”, the state of the memory cell remain from “ 11 ” or “ 10 ”. if the written data is “ 0 ”, the state of the memory cell shift either from “ 11 ” to “ 01 ” or from “ 10 ” to “ 00 ”. during a write operation , the data written into a memory cell is read out and a so - called write verify operation is conducted to verify if the writing operation is satisfactory . the data read out by the sense amplifier is regarded as “ 11 ” if the threshold value is not higher than 0v and as “ 10 if the threshold value is not lower than 0v and not higher than 1v , whereas the data is regarded as “ 01 ” if the threshold value is not lower than 1v and not higher than 2v and as “ 00 ” if the threshold value is not lower than 2v . thus , four - value threshold values are used for storing a 2 - bit data in a memory cell . in actual devices , the performance of the memory cells can vary from memory cell to memory cell and hence their threshold values can also vary . if they vary to a large extent , it will be no longer possible to identify the data stored in each memory cell and a wrong data may be read out . this embodiment of multi - valued flash memory is adapted to suppress dispersion of threshold value in a manner as indicated by a solid line in fig7 unlike the dispersion of threshold value observed in known flash memories as indicated by broken lines in fig7 . this point will be describe in detail to below . table 1 shows typical voltages of various parts of the first embodiment of multi - valued flash memory in erase , write , read and write verify operations . note that , the values shown in table 1 are obtained when the word line wl 2 and the even - numbered bit lines ble are selected for write and read operations . for an erase operation , 20v and 0v are supplied respectively to the p - type well 12 ( well line c - p - well ) and all the word lines wl 0 of the selected block . electrons are discharged from the floating gates fg of all the memory cells m of the block so that the threshold value becomes negative to show a state of “ 11 ”. while the word lines and the bit lines bl of the unselected blocks are brought to an electrically floating state , they show a voltage level close to 20v as a result of the capacitive coupling with the p - type well 12 . for writing a data , a first step operation , a second step operation and a write inhibiting operation are conducted sequentially . firstly , program voltage ( write voltage ) vpgm of about 14v to 20v is supplied to the selected word line wl 2 . a high voltage such as 10v is supplied to each of the unselected word lines , including , say , the word line wl 3 , of the memory cells located at the bit line side relative to the selected memory cells in order to make the memory cells connected to the word line wl 3 electrically conductive . on the other hand , a low voltage such as 0v is supplied to each of the unselected word lines , including , say the word line wl 1 , of the memory cells located at the side of the well line c - p - well relative to the selected memory cells in order make the memory cells connected to the word line wl 1 electrically non - conductive . the selected bit lines ble is supplies a voltage such as 0v . as a result , the 0v supplied to the selected bit lines ble are transferred to the drains of the selected memory cells and the electric potential of the floating gates fg is raised by the capacitive coupling of the control gates cg and that of the floating gates fg so that electrons are injected into the floating gates fg from the drain by way of the tunnel oxide film ( the tunnel oxide film 16 of fig5 a ) due to the tunneling phenomenon and the threshold value is rapidly raised ( the first step write operation ). the voltage of the bit lines ble is raised to 0 . 4v to suppress the rate at which the threshold value rises in a write operation ( the second step write operation ). the bit lines ble are made to show a sufficiently high voltage , e . g ., the supply voltage vdd ( up to 3v ) for completely blocking the rise of the threshold value ( write inhibition ). a read operation is conducted by sequentially supplying different read voltages ( 0v , 1v , 2v ) to the selected word line wl 2 . a voltage that makes the unselected memory cells electrically conductive , typically 4 . 5v , is supplied to the unselected remaining word lines . if the threshold value of the selected memory cells is lower than the read voltage , the bit lines ble and the common source line c - source are made electrically communicative with each other so that an electric current flows through them to bring the electric potential of the bit lines ble to a relatively low level , or level l . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the selected memory cells is higher the read voltage , the bit lines ble and the common source line c - source are made electrically non - communicative with each other to bring the electric potential of the bit lines ble to a relatively high level , or level h . the read voltage is typically made equal to 0v and a read operation is conducted ( to read “ 10 ”) for checking if the electric potential of a memory cell is higher than the threshold value corresponding to the state of “ 10 ” or not . the read voltage is typically made equal to 1v and a read operation is conducted ( to read “ 01 ”) for checking if the electric potential of a memory cell is higher than the threshold value corresponding to the state of “ 01 ” or not . the read voltage is typically made equal to 2v and a read operation is conducted ( to read “ 00 ”) for checking if the electric potential of a memory cell is higher than the threshold value corresponding to the state of “ 00 ” or not . a data is written into a memory cell in the state of “ 10 ” so as to make the threshold value not smaller than 0 . 4v in order to provide a read margin of 0 . 4v for the read voltage of 0v . thus , the operation of writing “ 10 ” is inhibited when the threshold value of the memory cell has got to 0 . 4v as a result of a write verify operation . conventional devices comparable to this embodiment are only adapted to check if the threshold value has got to 0 . 4v or not so that the threshold value shows a relatively broad distribution width as shown in fig7 . to the contrary , this embodiment of the present invention is adapted to check if the threshold value has got to a level slightly lower than the target threshold value or not and the rate at which the threshold value rises is suppressed in the second step write operation . therefore , it is now possible to narrow the distribution width of the threshold value as indicated by the solid line in fig7 . the above description also applies to the states of “ 01 ” and “ 00 ”. a write verify operation is conducted by sequentially supplying different verify voltages , e . g ., 0 . 2v , 0 . 4v , 1 . 2v , 1 . 4v , 2 . 2v , 2 . 4v to the selected word line wl 2 . if the threshold value of the selected memory cells is lower than the verify voltage , the bit lines ble and the common source line c - source are made electrically communicative with each other so that an electric current flows through them to bring the electric potential of the bit lines ble to a relatively low level , or level l . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the selected memory cells is higher than the verify voltage , the bit lines ble and the common source line c - source are made electrically non - communicative with each other to bring the electric potential of the bit lines ble to a relatively high level , or level h . if the target threshold value of the memory cell is 0 . 4v , the verify voltage is reduced typically to 0 . 2v for a write verify operation in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than a level slightly lower than the target threshold value , which is 0 . 2v in this embodiment , or not ( the first step operation of write verify “ 10 ”). the verify voltage is made equal to 0 . 4v and a write verify operation is conducted in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than 0 . 4 or not ( the second step operation of write verify “ 10 ”). if the target threshold value of the memory cell is 1 . 4v , the verify voltage is reduced typically to 1 . 2v for a write verify operation in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than a level slightly lower than the target threshold value , which is 1 . 2v in this embodiment , or not ( the first step operation of write verify “ 01 ”). the verify voltage is made equal to 1 . 4v and a write verify operation is conducted in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than 1 . 4v or not ( the second step operation of write verify “ 01 ”). if the target threshold value of the memory cell is 2 . 4v , the verify voltage is reduced to 2 . 2v for a write verify operation in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than a level slightly lower than the target threshold value , which is 2 . 2v in this embodiment , or not ( the first step operation of write verify “ 00 ”). the verify voltage is made equal to 2 . 4v and a write verify operation is conducted in order to check if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than 2 . 4 or not ( the second step operation of write verify “ 00 ”). fig8 is a graph illustrating the changing threshold value of memory cells of a known flash memory and a data writing method adapted to use such a changing threshold value . in fig8 , the small white squares indicate the threshold value and the write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be easily written , whereas the small black squares indicate the threshold value and the write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be hardly written . the two memory cells stores the data of a same page . the data are erased from both of them in the initial state and they show a negative threshold value . the write voltage vpgm is divided into a number of pulses and the pulses are made to rise stepwise typically by 0 . 2v at a time . in other words , the write voltage vpgm increased with a stepwise increment dvpgm of 0 . 2v per pulse . as the voltage of the bit line bl that is the write control voltage is made equal to 0v , the threshold value rises at a rate of 0 . 2v / pulse which is equal to the increment of the write voltage vpgm after several pulses . a write verify operation is conducted after the application of each write pulse and the write operation is inhibited at each memory cell whose threshold value , becomes to a bit line voltage vdd of the memory cell detected to have got to the level of the write verify voltage . thus , the threshold value shows a distribution width of 0 . 2v . fig9 is a graph illustrating the changing threshold value of a memory cell of the first embodiment of multi - value flash memory according to the invention and a data writing method adapted to use such a changing threshold value . as in the case of fig8 , the small white squares indicate the threshold value and the write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be easily written , whereas the small black squares indicate threshold values and a write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be hardly written . the two memory cells stores the data of the respective columns of a same page . the data are erased from both of them in the initial state and they show a negative threshold value . the write voltage vpgm is divided into a number of pulses and the pulses are made to rise stepwise typically by 0 . 2v at a time . in other words , the write voltage vpgm increases with a stepwise increment dvpgm of 0 . 2v per pulse . the voltage of the bit line bl that is the write control voltage is made equal to 0v and a first step write operation is conducted . in the first step write operation , the threshold value rises at a rate of 0 . 2v / pulse which is equal to the increment of the write voltage vpgm after the supplied several pulses . a first step write verify operation or a second step write verify operation is conducted after the application of each write pulse . the voltage of the bit line of the memory cell whose threshold value has got to the first step write verify voltage is subsequently increased to 0 . 4v and the second step write operation is conducted on a memory cell by memory cell basis . the voltage of the bit line of the memory cell whose threshold value has got to the second step write verify voltage is subsequently brought to vdd to inhibit any write operation on a memory cell by memory cell basis . in the second step write operation , the rising rate of the threshold value is held lower than the 0 . 2v / pulse of the first step write operation for several pulses . in other words , while the voltage of the bit lines bl , or the write control voltage , is 0v in the first step write operation , it rises to 0 . 4 in the second step write operation . therefore , it is more difficult to write data in the second step write operation than in the first step write operation . the rising rate of the threshold value in the second step write operation is typically held within a range between 0v / pulse and 0 . 05v / pulse . in other words , the threshold value shows a distribution width of as small as 0 . 05v in the second step write operation . if the write pulse width is 20 μsec . and the time required for a write verify operation is 5 μsec ., the duration of a write operation is conventionally ( 20 μsec .+ 5 μsec . )× 18 pulses = 450 μsec . conventionally , the voltage increment dvpgm of write voltage vpgm needs to be made equal to 0 . 05v , or a quarter of 0 . 2v , in order to realize a threshold value distribution width of 0 . 05v . then , the duration of a write operation is 450 μsec × 4 = 1800 μsec . on the other hand , with this embodiment , as shown in fig9 , it is possible to realize a threshold value distribution width of 0 . 05v by using a voltage increment dvpgm of 0 . 2v / pulse so that the duration of a write time is ( 20 μsec .+ 5 μsec .+ 5 μsec . )× 20 pulses = 600 μsec . thus , the duration of the write operation necessary for realizing a threshold value distribution width of 0 . 05v in this embodiment is reduced to a third of that of the above known device . “ 10 ” is written by using a “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage and a “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage respective for first step write verify voltage and for the second step write verify voltage . fig1 is a graph illustrating the method for writing a higher order page data into a same memory cell and the change with time of the threshold value of the memory of the first embodiment . as in the case of fig8 and 9 , the small white squares indicate the threshold value and the write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be easily written , whereas the small black squares indicate threshold values and a write control voltage ( the voltage of the bit line bl ) to be supplied to a memory cell where a data can be hardly written . the two memory cells stores the data of the respective columns of a same page . the data in the memory cell whose write control voltage is indicated by white squares , where a data can be easily written , is erased in the initial state and the memory cell shows a negative threshold value . assume that a date is written in the memory cell to make it show to show a “ 01 ” state . a data is already written in the memory cell whose write control voltage is indicated by black squares to make it show a “ 10 ” state in the initial state . assume that a data is written to the memory cell to make it show a “ 00 ” state . the write voltage vpgm is divided into a number of pulses and the pulses are made to rise stepwise typically by 0 . 2v at a time . in other words , the write voltage vpgm increases with a stepwise increment dvpgm of 0 . 2v per pulse . the voltage of the bit line bl that is the write control voltage is made equal to 0v and a first step write operation is conducted . in the first step write operation , the threshold value rises at a rate of 0 . 2v / pulse which is equal to the increment of the write voltage vpgm after several pulses . a “ 01 ” first step write verify operation is conducted after the application of each write pulse . after the write operation using a threshold value slightly lower than the target threshold value , a “ 01 ” second step write verify operation is conducted after the application of each write pulse . thereafter , a “ 00 ” first step write verify operation and a “ 00 ” second step write verify operation are conducted . when the threshold value of the memory cell indicated by white squares is detected to have got to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage , subsequently the bit line voltage is made equal to 0 . 4v and the process proceeds to the second step write operation . when the threshold value of the memory cell indicated by black squared is detected to have got to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage , subsequently the bit line voltage is made equal to 0 . 4v and the process proceeds to the second step write operation . furthermore , when the threshold value of the memory cell indicated by white squares is detected to have got to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage , subsequently the bit line voltage is made equal to vdd and the write operation is inhibited . finally , when the threshold value of the memory cell indicated by black squares is detected to have got to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage , subsequently the bit line voltage is made equal to vdd and the write operation is inhibited . after the second step write operation starts for both the data “ 01 ” and the data “ 00 ”, the increment of the threshold value is typically held within a range between about 0v / pulse and 0 . 05v / pulse for several pulses of the write voltage . therefore , the threshold value shows only a distribution width of 0 . 05v . fig1 is a graph illustrating the signal waveforms of different parts of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when writing a lower order page data into a single memory cell . referring to fig1 , the write step continues from time tp 0 to time tp 7 . a write pulse is applied during this period . the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation continues from time tfv 0 to time tfv 6 . then , the period of time from time tsv 0 to time tsv 6 is assigned to the “ 10 ” second step write verify operation . in this instance , it is assumed that the word line wl 2 and the even - numbered bit lines ble are selected . in the write step , the voltage of the bit lines ble that is the write control voltage is brought to 0v for the first step write operation and to 0 . 4v for the second step write operation , whereas it is brought to vdd ( e . g ., 2 . 5v ) when any write operation is inhibited . in each write verify period , firstly the bit lines ble is charged typically to 0 . 7v . thereafter , when the selected word line wl 2 has gets to the write verify voltage , the bit lines ble is held to 0 . 7v if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the write verify voltage but the voltage of the bit lines ble is reduced toward 0v if the threshold value of the memory cell has not got to the write verify voltage . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the write verify voltage or not can be detected by observing the voltage of the bit lines ble by means of a sense amplifier at timing of time tfv 4 or tsv 4 . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the write verify voltage , the detecting operation is successfully completed . fig1 is a flow chart schematically illustrating the control algorithm of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when writing a lower order page data into a single memory cell . the control operation starts with receiving a data input command from the host and placing the data input command in the state machine 8 ( s 1 ). then , the operation proceeds to receiving an address data from the host and placing the address in the state machine 8 to select the page to be used for a write operation ( s 2 ). thereafter , the operation proceeds to a step of receiving data to be written in a page and storing them correspondingly in the respective data storage sections ds 1 ( s 3 ). subsequently , the operation proceeds to a step of receiving a write command issued from the host and placing the write command in the state machine 8 ( s 4 ). as the write command is placed , the operation of steps s 5 through s 16 is automatically started by the state machine 8 in the inside . the data stored in the data storage sections ds 1 are copied respectively to the corresponding data storage sections ds 2 ( s 5 ). thereafter , 12v is selected for the initial value of the write voltage vpgm and the write counter pc is set to 0 ( s 6 ). if the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 0 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are also “ 0 ” s , they indicate a first step write operation and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines ble that is the write control voltage is reduced to 0v . if , on the other hand , the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 0 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s , they indicate a second step write operation and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines ble that is the write control voltage is brought to 0 . 4v . if , finally , the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 1 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are also “ 1 ” s , they indicate write inhibition and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines ble that is the write control voltage is brought to vdd ( s 7 ). then , the operation proceeds to the write step of applying a write pulse to the memory cells for storing the data of a page by using the selected write voltage vpgm and the write control voltage ( s 8 ). in the next step , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s or not is checked and , if they are all “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the first step is satisfactory whereas , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are not “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the first step is not satisfactory ( s 9 ). as will be described hereinafter , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s , there is no memory cell where the first step write operation is conducted in the preceding write step ( s 8 ). if the status of the first step is satisfactory , a “ 10 ” first step write verify operation is started ( s 10 ) and the data of the data storage sections ds 2 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . when the status of the first step is satisfactory or when the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation is completed , a “ 10 ” second step write verify operation is started ( s 11 ). the data of the data storage sections ds 1 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 1 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . after the “ 10 ” second step write verify operation , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 1 ” s or not is checked and , if they are all “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the second step is satisfactory whereas , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are not “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the second step is not satisfactory ( s 12 ). if the status of the second step is satisfactory , it is judged that the write operation has completed successfully and the status of the write operation is rated as satisfactory to terminate the write operation ( s 13 ). if , on the other hand , the status of the second step is not satisfactory , the write counter pc is checked ( s 14 ). if the reading of the write counter pc is not less than 20 , it is judged that the status of the write operation is failure and the write operation is terminated unsuccessfully ( s 15 ). if the reading of the write counter pc is not greater than 20 , the reading of the write counter pc is incremented by one and the write voltage vpgm is raised by 0 . 2v ( s 16 ). then , the operation is moved back to step s 7 and then the write operation of step s 8 is retried . it will be appreciated that the norm for the write operation is not necessarily be 20 and some other norm may be selected if appropriate . table 2 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 and ds 2 before and after the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation and the threshold value ( vt ) of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 10 ” first step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 and ds 2 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 and 1 / 1 . the combination of 0 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage but not to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage but not to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step so that the combination of 1 / 0 does not exists in this embodiment . immediately before the first “ 10 ” first step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 and ds 2 are either of the combinations of 0 / 0 and 1 / 1 . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 0 . 2v which is the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 0 . 2v , the detection outcome of the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . table 3 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 and ds 2 before and after the “ 10 ” second step write verify operation and the threshold value of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 10 ” second step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 and ds 2 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 and 1 / 1 . the combination of 0 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage after the end of the n - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step but not to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the end of the n − 1 - th write step . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1th write step but not to the “ 10 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step so that the combination of 1 / 0 does not exists in this embodiment . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 0 . 4v which is the “ 10 ” second step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 10 ” second step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 0 . 4v , the detection outcome of the “ 10 ” second step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . the combination of 0 / 0 will not be changed by the “ 10 ” second write verify operation . fig1 is a flow chart schematically illustrating the control algorithm of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when writing a higher order page data into a memory cell . referring to fig1 , the control operation starts with receiving a data input command from the host and placing the data input command in the state machine 8 ( s 1 ). then , the operation proceeds to receiving an address data from the host and placing the address in the state machine 8 to select the page to be used for a write operation ( s 2 ). thereafter , the operation proceeds to a step of receiving data to be written in a page and storing them correspondingly in the respective data storage sections ds 1 ( s 3 ). subsequently , the operation proceeds to a step of receiving a write command issued from the host and placing the write command in the state machine 8 ( s 4 ). as the write command is placed , the operation of steps s 5 through s 20 is automatically started by the state machine 8 in the inside . firstly , a “ 10 ” write operation is started ( s 5 ) and the operation is satisfactory ( the data of the memory cells are “ 10 ” s , “ 0 ” s are stored in the corresponding data storage sections ds 3 . if the operation is not satisfactory , “ 1 ” are stored in the corresponding data storage sections ds 3 . thereafter , the data stored in the data storage sections ds 1 are copied respectively to the corresponding storage sections ds 2 ( s 6 ). then , 14v is selected for the initial value of the write voltage vpgm and the write counter pc is set to 0 ( s 7 ). if the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 0 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are also “ 0 ” s , they indicate a first step write operation and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is set to 0v . if , on the other hand , the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 0 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s , they indicate a second step write operation and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is set to 0 . 4v . if , finally , the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 1 ” s and the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are also “ 1 ” s , they indicate write inhibition and , therefore , the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is set to vdd ( s 8 ). then , the operation proceeds to the write step of applying a write pulse to the memory cells for storing the data of a page by using the selected write voltage vpgm and the write control voltage ( s 9 ). in the next step , in all the data storage circuits 20 where “ 0 ” s are stored in the data storage sections ds 3 , it is checked if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s or not and , if they are all “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the “ 00 ” first step is satisfactory whereas , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are not “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the “ 00 ” first step is not satisfactory ( s 10 ). if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s , there is no memory cell where the “ 00 ” first step write operation is conducted in the preceding write step ( s 9 ). if the status of the “ 00 ” first step is not satisfactory , a “ 00 ” first step write verify operation is started ( s 11 ) and the data of the data storage sections ds 2 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s , provided that the data in the data storage sections ds 3 are “ 0 ”. the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . when the status of the “ 00 ” first step is satisfactory or when the “ 00 ” first step write verify operation is completed , a “ 00 ” second step write verify operation is started ( s 12 ). the data of the data storage sections ds 1 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s , provided that the data in the data storage section ds 3 are “ 0 ” s . the data storage sections ds 1 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . thereafter , in all the data storage circuits 20 where “ 0 ” s are stored in the data storage sections ds 3 , it is checked if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s or not is checked , if they are all “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the “ 01 ” first step is satisfactory whereas , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are not “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of that step is not satisfactory ( s 13 ). as will be described hereinafter , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 2 are “ 1 ” s , there is no memory cell where the first step write operation is conducted in the preceding write step ( s 9 ). if the status of the “ 01 ” first step is not satisfactory , a “ 01 ” first step write verify operation is started ( s 14 ) and , in all the data storage circuits 20 where “ 0 ” s are stored in the data storage sections ds 3 , the data of the data storage sections ds 2 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s , provided that the data in the data storage sections ds 3 are “ 0 ”. the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . when the status of the “ 01 ” first step is satisfactory or when the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation is completed , a “ 10 ” second step write verify operation is started ( s 15 ). then , in all the data storage circuits 20 where “ 0 ” s are stored in the data storage sections ds 3 , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 corresponding to only the memory cells where the detection outcome is satisfactory out of the memory cells for storing the data of a page are shifted from “ 0 ” s to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 1 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . after the “ 01 ” second step write verify operation , if all the data stored in the data storage sections ds 1 are “ 1 ” s or not is checked and , if they are all “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the second step is satisfactory whereas , if all the data are not “ 1 ” s , it is determined that the status of the second step is not satisfactory ( s 16 ). if the status of the second step is satisfactory , it is judged that the write operation has completed successfully and the status of the write operation is rated as satisfactory to terminate the write operation ( s 17 ). if , on the other hand , the status of the second step is not satisfactory , the write counter pc is checked ( s 18 ). if the reading of the write counter pc is not less than 20 , it is judged that the status of the write operation is failure and the write operation is terminated unsuccessfully ( s 19 ). if the reading of the write counter pc is not greater than 20 , the reading of the write counter pc is incremented by one and the write voltage vpgm is raised by 0 . 2v ( s 20 ). then , the operation is moved back to step s 8 and then the write operation of step s 9 is retried . it will be appreciated that the norm for the write operation is not necessarily be 20 and some other norm may be selected if appropriate . table 4 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 before and after the “ 10 ” first step write verify operation and the threshold value ( vt ) of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 01 ” first step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 , 1 / 1 / 1 , 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 . the combination of 0 / 0 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage but not to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage but not to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step so that the combination of 1 / 0 / 0 does not exists in this embodiment . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 1 . 2v which is the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 01 ” second step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 1 . 2v , the detection outcome of the “ 01 ” first step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . the combinations of 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 do not constitute any objects of the first step write verify operation so that they are not changed . table 5 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 before and after the “ 01 ” second step write verify operation and the threshold value ( vt ) of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 01 ” second step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 , 1 / 1 / 1 , 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 . the combination of 0 / 0 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage after the n - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step but not to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 / 1 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step but not to the “ 01 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step so that the combination of 1 / 0 / 1 does not exists in this embodiment . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 1 . 4v which is the “ 01 ” second step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 01 ” second step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 1 . 4v , the detection outcome of the “ 01 ” second step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . the combination of 0 / 0 / 1 will not be changed by the “ 01 ” second write verify operation . the combinations of 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 do not constitute any objects of the first step write verify operation so that they are not changed . table 6 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 before and after the “ 00 ” first step write verify operation and the threshold value ( vt ) of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 00 first step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 , 1 / 1 / 1 , 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 . the combination of 0 / 0 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage but not to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage but not to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step so that the combination of 1 / 0 / 0 does not exists in this embodiment . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 2 . 2v which is the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 00 ” first step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 2 . 2v by the n - th writer step , the detection outcome of the “ 00 ” first step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 2 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 2 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 and 1 / 1 / 1 do not constitute any objects of the first step ; very operation so that they are not changed . table 7 shows the relationship between the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 before and after the “ 00 ” second step write verify operation and the threshold value ( vt ) of the corresponding memory cells of the write algorithm illustrated in fig1 . immediately before the n - th “ 00 ” second step write verify operation , the data of the data storage sections ds 1 , ds 2 and ds 3 are one of the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 , 1 / 1 / 1 , 0 / 0 / 0 , 0 / 1 / 0 and 1 / 1 / 0 . the combination of 0 / 0 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage after the n - th write step . the combination of 0 / 1 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 ” first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step but not to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . the combination of 1 / 1 / 0 indicates that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step . it is not possible that the threshold value of the memory cells has got to the “ 00 second step write verify voltage by the n − 1 - th write step but not to the “ 00 first step write verify voltage by the n - th write step so that the combination of i / o / 0 does not exists in this embodiment . if the threshold value of the memory cells has not got to 2 . 4v which is the “ 00 ” second step write verify voltage by the n - th write step , the detection outcome of the “ 00 ” second step write verify operation is not satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are not changed . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cells has got to 2 . 4v , the detection outcome of the “ 00 ” second step write verify operation is satisfactory so that the data in the data storage sections ds 1 are shifted to “ 1 ” s . the data storage sections ds 1 storing “ 1 ” s are made to keep on storing “ 1 ” s . the combination of 0 / 0 / 0 will not be changed by the “ 00 ” second write verify operation . the combinations of 0 / 0 / 1 , 0 / 1 / 1 and 1 / 1 / 1 do not constitute any objects of the first step ; very operation so that they are not changed . fig1 is a flow chart schematically illustrating the control algorithm of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention for controlling the order of writing data into the blocks . firstly , the word line wl 0 is selected and lower order data are written into a page constituted by a plurality of memory cells connected to even - numbered bit lines . secondly , lower order data are written into a page constituted by a plurality of memory cells connected to odd - numbered bit lines . thirdly , higher order data are written into a page constituted by a plurality of memory cells connected to even - numbered bit lines . finally , higher order data are written into a page constituted by a plurality of memory cells connected to odd - numbered bit lines . then , data are written in a similar manner by sequentially using the remaining word lines wl 1 , wl 2 , wl 3 , . . . , observing the above sequence . with this arrangement , the interference of the floating gates of adjacent memory cells can be minimized . in other words , if a memory cell where a data is written subsequently shifts its state from “ 11 ” to “ 10 ”, from “ 11 ” to “ 01 ” or from “ 10 ” to “ 00 ”, a shift from “ 11 ” to “ 00 ” never takes place . the shift from “ 11 ” to “ 00 ” raises the threshold value of adjacent memory cells most . fig1 is a flow chart schematically illustrating the control algorithm of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when reading the lower order page data stored in a memory cell . the control operation starts with receiving a read command from the host and placing the read command in the state machine 8 ( s 1 ). then , the operation proceeds to receiving an address data from the host and placing the address in the state machine 8 to select the page to be used for a read operation ( s 2 ). as a result of the addressing , the operation of steps s 3 through s 5 is automatically started by the state machine 8 in the inside . firstly , a “ 01 ” read operation is started ( s 3 ). a voltage of 1v is supplied to the word line wl for the “ 01 ” read operation . “ 1 ” is produced by the reading operation of the sense amplifier if the threshold value of the memory cell is lower than the “ 01 ” data , whereas “ 0 ” is produced if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than “ 01 ” data . the outcome of the read operation is stored in the corresponding data storage section ds 3 . thereafter , a “ 10 ” read operation is started ( s 4 ). a voltage of 0v is supplied to the word line wl for the “ 10 ” read operation . “ 1 ” is produced by the reading operation of the sense amplifier if the threshold value of the memory cell is lower than the “ 10 ” data , whereas “ 0 ” is produced if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than “ 10 ” data . the outcome of the read operation is stored in the corresponding data storage section ds 2 . lastly , a “ 00 ” read operation is started ( s 5 ). a voltage of 2v is supplied to the word line wl for the “ 00 ” read operation . “ 1 ” is produced by the reading operation of the sense amplifier if the threshold value of the memory cell is lower than the “ 00 ” data , whereas “ 0 ” is produced if the threshold value of the memory cell is higher than “ 00 ” data . the lower order page data is produced by a logical operation using the outcome of the “ 00 ” read operation and the data stored in the corresponding data storage sections ds 2 and ds 3 and stored in the corresponding data storage section ds 1 . the data stored in the data storage section ds 1 is output as lower order page data . for example , if the outcome of the operation of reading “ 01 ” stored in the data storage section ds 3 is “ 1 ” and that of the operation of reading “ 10 ” stored in the data storage section ds 2 is also “ 1 ”, “ 1 ” is produced by the logical operation using the lower order page data . if the outcome of the operation of reading “ 01 ” stored in the data storage section ds 3 is “ 1 ” and that of the operation of reading “ 10 ” stored in the data storage section ds 2 is “ 0 ”, “ 0 ” is produced by the logical operation using the lower order page data . if the outcome of the operation of reading “ 01 ” stored in the data storage section ds 3 is “ 0 ” and that of the operation of reading “ 00 ” is also “ 0 ”, “ 0 ” is produced by the logical operation using the lower order page data . the outcome of the operation of reading “ 01 ” stored in the data storage section ds 3 is “ 0 ” and that of the operation of reading “ 00 ” is “ 1 ”, “ 1 ” is produced by the logical operation using the lower order page data . in short , the logic circuit for carrying out such logical operations needs to be so arranged that the value of the ds 2 is stored in the data storage section ds 1 as lower order page data when ds 3 is “ 1 ” and the outcome of reading “ 01 ” is stored in the data storage section ds 1 as lower order page data when ds 3 is “ 0 ”. fig1 is a flow chart schematically illustrating the control algorithm of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when reading the higher order page data stored in a memory cell . the control operation starts with receiving a read command from the host and placing the read command in the state machine 8 ( s 1 ). then , the operation proceeds to receiving an address data from the host and placing the address in the state machine 8 to select the page to be used for a read operation ( s 2 ). as a result of the addressing , the operation of step s 3 is automatically started by the state machine 8 in the inside . firstly , a “ 01 ” read operation is started in step s 3 . the outcome of the reading operation shows upper order page data , which is stored in the corresponding data storage section ds 1 . in other words , the outcome of the operation of reading “ 01 ” is used as upper order page data . then , the data in the data storage section ds 1 is externally output . in this way , with the multi - value flash memory of the first embodiment , it is now possible to suppress any undesired increase of write time and reduce the distribution width of a threshold value so as to improve the reliability of the device . fig1 a is a graph illustrating the signal waveforms in a write step of the first embodiment of flash memory according to the invention as extracted from the signal waveform of fig1 . note that the voltage of the bit lines ble is made equal to 0 . 4v to carry out a second step write operation . in a write step of the first embodiment , the write operation is conducted while the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is typically held to 0 . 4v during all the period of applying a predetermined write voltage ( e . g ., 18 . 0v as shown in fig1 a ) to the selected word line wl . fig1 b is a graph illustrating the signal waveforms in a write step of the second embodiment of flash memory according to the invention . as shown in fig1 b , the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is held to 0v for only a predetermined period twr out of all the period of applying the write voltage vpgm to the selected word line wl and subsequently brought to vdd in order to inhibit any write operation thereafter . the predetermined period twr for which the voltage of the bit lines bl is held to 0v is determined in such a way that the duration of the second step write operation is shorter that of the first step write operation . then , the increment of the threshold value for the second step write operation can be made smaller than that of the threshold vale for the first step write operation as in the case of the first embodiment . thus , with the second embodiment , the effective value of the write control voltage can be made substantially equal to that of the first embodiment where the voltage of the bit lines bl that is the write control voltage is held to a constant level during the entire write step to consequently bring about the advantages of the first embodiment . fig1 is a graph illustrating the signal waveforms of different parts of the third embodiment of flash memory according to the invention when writing a data into a single memory cell . it will be appreciated that fig1 corresponds to the waveforms of fig1 . as described above by referring to fig1 , with the first embodiment , the voltage of the bit lines is reset to 0v after the end of a first step write verify operation even when it maintains the voltage level observed immediately after a charging operation and then the bit lines are electrically recharged for a second step write verify operation . on the other hand , with the third embodiment a write verify operation is conducted in a manner as described below . the bit lines ble are electrically charged typically to 0 . 7v for a first step write verify operation . as the selected word line wl 2 gets to the first step write verify voltage , the bit lines ble maintain the 0 . 7v if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the first step write verify voltage . however , the voltage of the bit lines ble falls toward 0v if the threshold value of the memory cell has not got to the first step write verify voltage . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the first step write verify voltage or not can be detected by observing the voltage of the bit lines ble by means of a sense amplifier at timing of tfv 4 shown in fig1 . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the write verify voltage , the detecting operation is successfully completed . thereafter , at timing of tfv 5 of tfv 3 , the voltage of the selected word line wl 2 is switched from the first step write verify voltage to the second step write verify voltage . for example , the voltage of the selected word line wl 2 may be raised from 0 . 2v to 0 . 4v as shown in fig1 . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the second step write verify voltage , the 0 . 7v of the bit lines ble is maintained . if , on the other hand , the threshold value of the memory cell has not got to the second step write verify voltage , the voltage of the bit lines ble falls toward 0v . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the second step write verify voltage or not can be checked by detecting the voltage of the bit lines ble at the timing of tsv 4 . if the threshold value of the memory cell has got to the write verify voltage , the outcome of the detection is satisfactory . the third embodiment provides an advantage of eliminating the time necessary for charging the bit lines for a second step write verify operation and achieving a higher data writing rate in addition to the advantages of the first embodiment . it will be appreciated that the above description applies to a first or second step write verify operation with data “ 01 ” or data “ 00 ” by changing the write verify voltage . while the above embodiments are described in terms of storing a 2 - bit data , or a 4 - valued data , in a single memory cell , it will be appreciated that embodiments adapted to store a higher valued data in a single memory can easily be realized . additional advantages and modifications will readily occur to those skilled in the art . therefore , the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details and representative embodiments shown and described herein . accordingly , various modifications may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the general inventive concept as defined by the appended claims and their equivalents .	6
a toy in accordance with the invention is intended herein to broadly embrace any and all suitable structural configurations providing at least two regions , each of which , due to differing physical characteristics of the regions themselves or by virtue of positional placement of other structure of the toy , is accessed to a relatively greater or lesser degree by a dog when picking up the toy in its mouth . it will be understood that such suitable structural configurations are not intended herein to be limited to any precise shape or size , and selection of such parameters in the practice of the invention will often be dictated by design preference , and preferred manner and ease of gripping of the toy by both the user and the dog . the characteristics referred to above which control the respective relative degrees of animal interest in picking up the toy by one region or another may be sensory - based , i . e ., involving such factors as smell , taste , appearance , surface feel , hardness , etc ., and / or may be a structural feature which physically inhibits or discourages access by a dog &# 39 ; s mouth to a given one of the regions designed to be held by a user and therefore intended to be accessed to a lesser relative degree by the dog or other animal . referring now to the figures , fig1 and 2 depict an embodiment of the toy in accordance with the invention , generally designated 10 . in accordance with the illustrated example , toy 10 is structurally of elongated dimension and presents a general shape visually reminiscent of a bone , i . e ., having the appearance of enlarged end portions relative to a narrower central portion extending therebetween . as shown in the figures , toy 10 includes a bar 1 comprising a central region 1 a and opposed end regions defining two handles 1 b . a pair of shields 2 are disposed along the bar 1 in a position adjacent to the opposed ends thereof . shields 2 may be configured in any suitable shape which effectively restricts or inhibits access by the mouth of the animal to the handles 1 b , yet allows grasping thereof by a user inserting a hand 3 into an inner region 4 of shields . conveniently , the shields 2 are , for example as shown , cup - shaped , having open ends arranged to face outwardly in a direction along a longitudinal axis a , and as further shown , advantageously extend past terminal ends of handles 1 b . the openings in the shields 2 are preferably of sufficient size to permit the hand 3 to be inserted and to grasp the handle 1 b disposed therein , and yet advantageously still small enough to discourage a dog from trying to insert its snout in an attempt to bite the handle 1 b or the walls of the shield 2 . the shield can optionally include cutouts 5 , for example , to reduce wind resistence when thrown or just simply to give the toy 10 a more attractive appearance . the elongated central region 1 a , which serves to provide the animal access region , is advantageously appropriately dimensioned to be comfortably receivable between the jaws of a dog and can , if so desired , be textured , patterned , flavored , covered by any suitable material , etc ., to further enhance animal appeal . the handles 1 b , by virtue of being at least partially shrouded by shields 2 , serve to provide animal restricted regions . conveniently , in particular from the standpoint of manufacture and as shown in the example of fig1 and 2 , the handles 1 b are simply axial extensions of the elongated central region 1 a extending between the shields 2 , and having either the same , greater or lesser diameter for comfortable grasping by the user . during use , the user simply grabs either of the shielded handles 1 b and throws the toy 10 as one would throw a stick or the like . when retrieving the toy 10 from the ground after the toy 10 is thrown , the dog is presented with the elongated central region 1 a which is elevated above the ground by the greater diameter shields 2 disposed at opposed ends of the toy 10 which serve to support same on the ground , and the dog is therefore most likely to pick the toy up by the animal access region presented by elongated central region 1 a . it is noted that , although the particular example described above employs two handles 1 b , only one gripping region , conveniently in the form of a suitable handle structure , need be provided at one position of the toy 10 in accordance with an embodiment of the invention . the embodiment shown in fig1 and 2 is conveniently an integral structure , produced as one piece , for example , in practice , by injection molding or other suitable process . however , if so desired , the toy ( including embodiments later described herein or others made in accordance with practice of the invention ) may be comprised of an assembly of parts , for example in instances where injection molding of a unified toy is not a practical option , or where it is desired that the toy have different physical characteristics over different regions to achieve the objectives of the invention ( i . e ., to provide , for example , varying sensory - based stimulus ) or simply to provide a more visually appealing or comfortable feel for consumers at point of purchase and / or during use . fig3 a and 3 b illustrate merely two examples of the virtually limitless possibilities for such assemblies , as will be apparent to one skilled in the art . referring to fig3 a , a toy 10 ′ is comprised of a rod 1 ′ which includes a handle 1 b ′ and a central region 1 a ′ molded as an integral unit . a shield 2 ′ is made of a resilient material stretchable to a degree sufficient to permit assembly by slidable reception of the shield past the handle 1 b ′ thereby to allow a reception portion 2 a ′ of the shield 2 ′ to be captively received in a groove formed in the rod 1 ′ at an axial juncture of the handle 1 b ′ and the central region 1 a ′ when an applied stretching force is relieved . turning now to fig3 b , a toy 10 ″ includes a central member 1 a ″ made , for example , of a moderately rigid or shape - retaining material , and an outer sleeve 1 c ″ of a softer , and optionally , absorbent material , such as a pile , woven fabric , carpet - like material , etc .. referring now to fig4 and 5 , another embodiment of a toy is depicted , generally designated as numeral 20 . toy 20 includes a series of members 21 ( preferably at least three , and in the depicted example of fig4 and 5 , four ) having a longitudinal dimension running co - directionally with a central axis a ′ of the toy , and which are circumferentially spaced - apart about the central axis a ′ ( each equally spaced circumferentially 90 ° apart in the depicted example ) and having at least structural portions located radially outward from the central axis a ′. in a particularly advantageous variant of this embodiment , outermost edges of the members are shaped to collectively describe a generally spherical envelope , as shown in the particular example depicted . at least one hand - grasping region ( preferably two , as shown ) is provided , advantageously , though not necessarily , through which the central axis a ′ passes , and more advantageously in the form of a rod - shaped handle 22 ( preferably two rod - shaped handles 22 , as shown in the example ) longitudinally aligned with the central axis a ′. each of the members 21 and the handles 22 are mutually secured , either by integral molding , fabrication , or assembly . radially outward portions 21 a of the members 21 are extended outward from a center c of the toy 20 in the axial direction such that they extend past an axial position of an inwardmost end of the handle 22 a , thereby at least partially shielding the handles 22 , such that the handles 22 serve to provide the animal restricted regions . in a preferred case , two handles 22 disposed in opposed positions along the central axis a ′ are provided ( as shown in fig4 ), and terminal ends 21 b of the members 21 extend approximately to an axial position p corresponding to outwardly facing terminal ends 22 b of the handles 22 , thereby advantageously shielding handles 22 over a major , or substantially entire , portion of their axial extent . in the presently described embodiment , the circumferentially spaced - apart members 21 each presents an animal access region , particularly accessible by the animal at the radially outward portions 21 a of the members 21 . it should be noted that by virtue of the geometry of this depicted embodiment of fig4 and 5 , the toy 20 is self - righting , i . e ., when tossed onto a relatively horizontal surface , the toy 20 will come to rest with the handles ( and central axis a ′) extending horizontally , and generally parallel with the support surface . this feature provides particular advantage , since when thrown during , for example , fetch play , the toy 20 will right itself in this manner , thereby orienting the circumferentially spaced - apart members 21 , each which presents an animal access region , in a raised position from the ground so as to be particularly accessible by the animal . it is noted that by selecting an appropriate center of gravity , alternative toy designs having other configurations can incorporate this self - righting feature . gripping regions , shown in the depicted example in the form of handles 22 , and which provide the animal restricted regions , need not be in the form of formal handle structure as in the present example , but instead may rather simply be comprised of a hand - retainable region accessible by a hand of a user , which region is at least partially shielded by the terminal end structure of the members 21 providing the animal access regions . an example of such embodiment is depicted in fig6 and 7 , in which an alternate toy embodiment is depicted , generally at 30 . toy 30 includes three members 31 spaced apart circumferentially about a central axis a ″. in the example shown , although not essential to practice of the invention , the members are equally spaced circumferentially by angular intervals of 120 °. the present embodiment is made in general accordance with the above - discussed considerations as the prior - described embodiment , and therefore description of analogous features need not be repeated , and only the notable differences will be addressed . in the embodiment , formal handles are omitted , and hand gripping regions 32 are instead provided at a juncture of the members 31 where they meet at the central axis a ″ in a position axially inward of ( i . e ., recessed back from ) terminal ends 31 b of the members 31 , whereby the extended portions of members 31 proximate to the terminal ends 31 b thereof partially shield access by the animal to the gripping regions 32 which thereby serve to provide the animal restricted regions . it is noted that , alternative to a rod - like handle or a simple gripping region as described above , any number of other suitable configurations can be used in satisfactory manner to satisfy the spirit of the invention . for example , as depicted in fig8 another embodiment of a toy is shown , generally designated 40 . toy 40 is the same in form as the embodiment of fig6 and 7 , and description relating to analogous features , such as the members 41 ( corresponding to members 21 and 31 ) will therefore not be repeated . however , instead of a simple gripping region being provided in a position on the toy recessed back from terminal ends of the members , holes 43 are provided in a location corresponding to the gripping regions 32 in the embodiment of fig6 and 7 through which a rope 42 is passed in general alignment with a central axis a ′″. knots 42 a tied in the rope serve as convenient means for retaining the rope 42 to a remainder of the toy 40 . additional knots 42 b adjacent terminal ends of the rope 42 b optionally facilitate grabbing by a hand of the user . in this embodiment , the free end portions of each of the rope 42 serves as a handle providing the animal restricted regions designed to be accessed by the hand of the user and not the animal . it is noted that in each of the embodiments of fig4 - 8 , the members 21 , 31 , 41 have a cutout portion between the radially outward portions 21 a , 31 a , 41 a thereof and the central axis a ′, a ″, a ′″. however , such structural feature is not deemed essential to the invention , and the members could alternatively be made as solid fin - like structures which radiate from the central axis . additionally , such fin - like structures could optionally thicken in profile as they extend further from the axis to better provide a biting structure for the animal at the radially outermost regions most accessible by the snout of a dog . further examples illustrative of the vast many variations of designs possible which embody the disclosed invention are described with reference to fig9 and 11 . it will be understood in this context that other designs equally diverse in structure , and not shown by example , will fall within the embrace of the invention as contemplated . [ 0038 ] fig9 depicts a toy , generally designated 50 , which includes ropes 51 tensioned between a pair of opposed support members 52 ( retained to the supports by knots or other suitable means ). support members 52 are conveniently identical and are attached to one another end to end such that cup - shaped openings 52 a of the support members face in opposite directions . a handle 52 b is advantageously integrally molded as part of the support member , and serves as the animal restricted region . the ropes 51 , radially spaced from a central axis serve as the animal access regions . [ 0039 ] fig1 depicts a toy , generally designated 60 , which includes a handle 61 ( serving as the animal restricted region ) shrouded by a shielded portion 62 , and a ring portion 63 ( animal access region ), for typical access by a dog as shown . as with the previous embodiments , the toy 60 is made of suitable material of desired resiliency and weight . [ 0040 ] fig1 depicts a toy 70 , particularly suited for tug activities . in this embodiment , unlike the preceding embodiments , a handle 71 serving as the animal restricted region and shrouded by a shield 72 is disposed cross - wise to a central axis a ″″. a tug ring 73 for reception in a dog &# 39 ; s mouth , which serves as the animal access region , is disposed adjacent to the shield 72 , thereby allowing interactive tug play . in yet another embodiment , not depicted , a toy includes two regions each having a characteristic or more than one characteristic which , by virtue of a sensory response by the animal , creates a tendency for the animal to frequent one region more than another . in this regard , the characteristic in one region may be , for example , a taste preferred by the dog , and in the other region , one avoided , for example , a bitter flavor . in the alternative or in addition , smell , color , etc . may be used to discourage the dog to access an animal restricted region , and encourage access to the animal access region . in such dog toy , no particular configuration is important , and the toy may take , for example , the form of a simple rod , in which the animal access region is at one end portion and the animal restricted region on the other . it is noted that the foregoing embodiments described above herein merely represent a few of the myriad possible structural configurations which can embody the principles of the invention . in this regard , rather than being limited to specific structural arrangements and shapes , the intended scope of the invention contemplates design of any number of toys of desired shapes and sizes which take into account any of various parameters ascertained , at present of in the future , as contributing to the likelihood that an animal will frequent one region of toy more than another . in addition , it is further noted that other physical characteristics , in addition to those described specifically herein which exist at present or are discovered in the future as affecting animal behavior without harmful effect , may be suitably incorporated in a toy design practiced in accordance with the invention to influence an animal &# 39 ; s proclivity to access one region ( animal access region ) as opposed to another ( animal restricted region ), and the employment of such physical characteristics in alternative toy designs is contemplated to fall within the intended scope of the claimed invention . having described preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments , and that various changes and modifications may be effected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention as defined in the appended claims .	0
hereinafter , a first preferred embodiment of the present invention will be discussed with reference to accompanying drawings . fig1 is a block diagram of a memory module according to the first preferred embodiment . a host system 1 and a memory module 2 are connected with each other via an interface 31 provided in the memory module 2 . the host system 1 outputs a command which designates an address of data which is expected to be read out (“ readout command ”) to the memory module 2 . also , the host system 1 processes data such as a program which is read out from a memory 4 provided in the memory module 2 . a body of a game machine is cited as an example of the host system 1 , and a game cartridge is cited as an example of the memory module 2 . the memory module 2 includes a memory controller 3 and the memory 4 . the memory controller 3 is able to control access to the memory 4 when the host system 1 reads out data from the memory 4 . also , the memory controller 3 is able to prevent the host system 1 from gaining direct access to the memory 4 when the host system 1 repeatedly reads out data from the memory 4 . because of the inclusion of the memory controller 3 , it is possible to avoid or suppress a “ read disturb ” phenomenon . a concrete method of avoiding or suppressing a “ read disturb ” phenomenon will be later described in detail . the memory 4 is a storage device for storing data which is read out by the host system 1 . in a case where the host system 1 is a body of a game machine , data stored in the memory 4 is a game program processed by the host system 1 . the memory 4 is a non - volatile memory , and further , in the first preferred embodiment , the memory 4 is a nand flash memory of a single - level cell ( slc ) type ( slc nand flash memory ). however , the present invention can be applied to the other types of non - volatile memories such as a nand flash memory of a multi - level cell ( mlc ) type ( mlc nand flash memory ) and a nor flash memory . the memory controller 3 includes the interface 31 , an address decoder 32 , an address comparator 33 , a data selector 34 , a rdy / bsy selector 35 , an access controller 36 , a buffer 37 , and the like . the interface 31 allows the host system 1 and the memory module 2 to exchange a readout command and read data therebetween . the address decoder 32 extracts an address at which data which is expected to be read out is stored (“ readout address ”) from a readout command which is received from the host system 1 . also , the address decoder 32 outputs the thus extracted readout address to the address comparator 33 and the access controller 36 . the address comparator 33 stores a readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 . then , the address comparator 33 compares a current readout address which has most recently been received , with a previous readout address which was received immediately before the current readout address . in a case where a current readout address and a previous readout address match each other , the address comparator 33 outputs a switching signal for switching to a buffer access path , to the data selector 34 and the rdy / bsy selector 35 . also , the address comparator 33 outputs a memory access denial signal to the access controller 36 . as a result , in reading out the same data that was previously read out by the host system 1 , it is impossible to gain access to the memory 4 and access to the buffer 37 is permitted . in a case where a current readout address and a previous readout address do not match each other , the address comparator 33 outputs a switching signal for switching to a memory access path , to the data selector 34 and the rdy / bsy selector 35 . also , the address comparator 33 outputs a memory access request signal to the access controller 36 . as a result of comparison between a current readout address and a previous readout address in the address comparator 33 , the task of reading out the same data that was previously read out by the host system 1 can be achieved by gaining access to the buffer 37 without a need for access to the memory 4 . accordingly , it is possible to avoid or suppress a “ read disturb ” phenomenon . the data selector 34 , in response to a switching signal for switching to a buffer access path which is received from the address comparator 33 , establishes access between the buffer 37 and the host system 1 . also , the data selector 34 , in response to a switching signal for switching to a memory access path which is received from the address comparator 33 , establishes access between the memory 4 and the host system 1 . the rdy / bsy selector 35 , in response to a switching signal for switching to a buffer access path which is received from the address comparator 33 , outputs an always rdy signal which indicates that the buffer 37 is always in a ready mode , to the host system 1 . also , the rdy / bsy selector 35 , in response to a switching signal for switching to a memory access path which is received from the address comparator 33 , outputs a rdy signal which indicates that the memory 4 is in a ready mode and a bsy signal which indicates that the memory 4 is in a busy mode , to the host system 1 . in a case where the host system 1 reads out data from the buffer 37 , by fixing a signal which indicates an operation mode of the buffer 37 to a rdy signal , it is possible to read out data from the buffer 37 at a high speed . the access controller 36 is able to control direct access to the memory 4 . more specifically , the access controller 36 , in response to a memory access denial signal received from the address comparator 33 , does not gain access to a readout address which is provided to the address comparator 33 from the address decoder 32 . also , the access controller 36 , in response to a memory access request signal received from the address comparator 33 , gains access to a readout address which is provided to the address comparator 33 from the address decoder 32 . the buffer 37 stores data which is read out by the host system 1 . when the host system 1 reads out data from the memory 4 , the buffer 37 newly reads out from the memory 4 and stores the same data as is read out by the host system 1 . on the other hand , when the host system 1 reads out data from the buffer 37 , the buffer 37 holds the read data which has already been stored therein without newly reading out from the memory 4 and storing the same data as is read out by the host system 1 . the buffer 37 must be a rewritable memory because the buffer 37 newly stores read data in some cases . in the first preferred embodiment , an sram is employed as the buffer 37 in order to increase a speed of access between the host system 1 and the buffer 37 . however , the present invention can be applied to a case where the buffer 37 is any other type of rewritable memory . below , a flow of processes for avoiding or suppressing a “ read disturb ” phenomenon in an information processor formed of the host system 1 and the memory module 2 as discussed above will be discussed . fig2 is a flow chart showing processes for reading out data by the host system 1 according to the first preferred embodiment . respective reference numerals beginning with “ s ” which indicate respective steps in fig2 correspond to the respective reference numerals beginning with “ s ” in fig1 . in the first preferred embodiment , the host system 1 reads out data on a page - by - page basis , and also , the buffer 37 is able to store a page of data . first , the memory module 2 is mounted onto the host system 1 . in a case where the host system 1 is a body of a game machine and the memory module 2 is a game cartridge , the memory module 2 is inserted into the host system 1 . then , the host system 1 is turned on . the access controller 36 acquires an initial value which is set by the address comparator 33 ( step s 1 ). note that each of an initial value and a current value which will be later described in detail corresponds to a top portion or the like of a page or a block . since the host system 1 reads out data on a page - by - page basis in the first preferred embodiment , each of an initial value and a current value corresponds to a top portion of a page . now , we will describe methods for setting an initial value in the address comparator 33 , giving specific examples . in a first method , a current value which was set by the address comparator 33 when the host system 1 was turned off before is employed as an initial value when the host system 1 is again turned on . in a second method , a specific initial value is set each time the host system 1 is turned on . in setting an initial value in the address comparator 33 , it is desirable that the memory module 2 includes a non - volatile memory which keeps storing an initial value even while the host system 1 is turned off . as a non - volatile memory which stores an initial value , a non - volatile memory provided within the address comparator 33 , a portion of the memory 4 which is a non - volatile memory , a distinct non - volatile memory which is additionally provided , and the like can be cited . alternatively , in the method in which a specific initial value is set each time the host system 1 is turned on , the memory 4 may be configured to store the specific initial value . after the access controller 36 acquires the initial value which is set by the address comparator 33 , the access controller 36 gains access to the memory 4 , to read out data at an address indicated by the initial value . then , the data read out by the access controller 36 is stored in the buffer 37 ( step s 2 ). by performing the above - discussed processes , an initial stage is completed . next , a readout command which is output from the host system 1 is input to the address decoder 32 via the interface 31 ( step s 3 ). the address decoder 32 extracts a readout address from the input readout command , and outputs the extracted readout address to the address comparator 33 and the access controller 36 ( step s 4 ). the address comparator 33 compares the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 with the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 ( step s 5 ). if the address indicated by the initial value and the readout address match each other , it means that data which is expected to be read out by the host system 1 and data which is stored in the buffer 37 in the step s 2 match each other . on the other hand , if the address indicated by the initial value and the readout address do not match each other , it means that data which is expected to be read out by the host system 1 and data which is stored in the buffer 37 in the step s 2 do not match each other . below , respective process flows in cases where the address indicated by the initial value and the readout address match , and do not match , each other will be discussed . first , consider a case where the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 and the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 match each other . in this case , the address comparator 33 outputs a switching signal “ 0 ” for switching to a buffer access path to the data selector 34 and the rdy / bsy selector 35 ( step s 6 ). also , the address comparator 33 outputs a memory access denial signal to the access controller 36 ( step s 7 ). the address comparator 33 updates the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 to the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 ( step s 8 ). a current value which has been described above with respect to the step s 1 represents the latter address . alternatively , since it is assumed that the two addresses match each other in the present case , the address comparator 33 may be controlled not to update the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 . the access controller 36 , which receives a memory access denial signal , enters into an inoperative mode ( step s 9 ). also , the rdy / bsy selector 35 , which receives the switching signal “ 0 ” for switching to a buffer access path , outputs a rdy / bsy signal ( having a fixed value , “ 1 ”) to the host system 1 via the interface 31 . the rdy / bsy signal ( having a fixed value , “ 1 ”) is an always rdy signal regardless of an operation mode of the buffer 37 . the host system 1 performs polling of the rdy / bsy signal ( having a fixed value , “ 1 ”), to thereby read out the data which is stored in the buffer 37 in the step s 2 ( step s 10 ). in other words , the host system 1 is able to read out data from the buffer 37 at a high speed regardless of an operation mode of the buffer 37 . the buffer 37 holds the data which has been stored therein in the step s 2 ( step s 11 ). if the host system 1 is not turned off , processes will proceed from the step s 3 thereafter . a flow of the processes which will proceed thereafter will be briefly discussed at later paragraphs . if the host system 1 is turned off , no process is performed . as a result of the above - discussed process flow , in the case where the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 and the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 match each other , the host system 1 gains access to the buffer 37 without a need for access to the memory 4 , to thereby read out data while avoiding or suppressing a “ read disturb ” phenomenon . next , consider a case where the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 and the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 do not match each other . in this case , the address comparator 33 outputs a switching signal “ 1 ” for switching to a memory access path to the data selector 34 and the rdy / bsy selector 35 ( step s 12 ). also , the address comparator 33 outputs a memory access request signal to the access controller 36 ( step s 13 ). the address comparator 33 updates the address indicated by the initial value which is set in the step s 1 to the readout address which is received from the address decoder 32 ( step s 14 ). a current value which has been discussed above with respect to the step s 1 represents the latter address . the access controller 36 , which receives a memory access request signal , gains access to the readout address which is provided to the address comparator 33 from the address decoder 32 ( step s 15 ). on the other hand , the rdy / bsy selector 35 , which receives the switching signal “ 1 ” for switching to a memory access path , outputs a rdy / bsy signal to the host system 1 via the interface 31 . the host system 1 performs polling of the rdy / bsy signal , to confirm that the memory 4 is in a ready mode , and then , reads out data stored in the memory 4 ( step s 16 ). the buffer 37 updates the data which is stored in the step s 2 to the data which is read out by the host system 1 ( step s 17 ). if the host system 1 is not turned off , processes will proceed from the step s 3 thereafter . more specifically , the address comparator 33 compares a new readout address designated by a new readout command which is output from the host system 1 , with the address indicated by the current value ( step s 5 ). if the new readout address and the address indicated by the current value match each other , the host system 1 reads out data from the buffer 37 ( step s 10 ). on the other hand , if the new readout address and the address indicated by the current value do not match each other , the host system 1 reads out data from the memory 4 ( step s 16 ). the same processes will proceed also when the host system 1 outputs a further new readout command . if the host system 1 is turned off , no process is performed . below , how an address indicated by an initial value or a current value which is stored in the address comparator 33 and an object of access for readout ( an object which is expected to be accessed for reading out some information therefrom ) vary while the host system 1 is consecutively outputting readout commands in the above - discussed process flow will be specifically discussed . fig3 is a view showing time series of variations of an address indicated by an initial value or a current value and an object of access for readout according to the first preferred embodiment . in fig3 , it is assumed that time elapses as a position therein moves from an upper portion to a lower portion . items on the first line under double lines in fig3 represent that when an address indicated by an initial value or a current value is a page p 1 , in response to a readout command which tells that the page p 1 is a readout address being output from the host system 1 ( step s 3 ), the address comparator 33 determines that the two addresses match each other ( step s 5 ), so that the buffer 37 becomes an object of access for readout ( step s 10 ). the address comparator 33 updates the address indicated by an initial value or a current value to the readout address ( step s 8 ). if the two addresses match each other , the address comparator 33 may alternatively be configured not to update the address indicated by an initial value or a current value . also , the buffer 37 holds data at the page p 1 which has already been stored therein ( step s 11 ). items on the third line under the double lines in fig3 represent that when an address indicated by a current value is the page p 1 , in response to a readout command which tells that a page p 2 is a readout address being output from the host system 1 ( step s 3 ), the address comparator 33 determines that the two addresses do not match each other ( step s 5 ), so that the memory 4 becomes an object of access for readout ( step s 16 ). the address comparator 33 updates the address indicated by a current value to the readout address ( step s 14 ). also , the buffer 37 updates the data at the page p 1 which has already been stored therein to data at the page p 2 ( step s 17 ). items on the fifth and seventh lines under the double lines in fig3 represent that the same processes as described above with respect to the first and third lines under the double lines in fig3 are performed . according to the first preferred embodiment , the host system 1 gains access to the buffer 37 without a need for access to the memory 4 in order to read out again the same data that was read out before , so that a “ read disturb ” phenomenon can be avoided or suppressed . in this regard , a technique for avoiding or suppressing a “ read disturb ” phenomenon even in a case where a readout command which tells that the page p 1 is a readout address and a readout command which tells that the page p 2 is a readout address are alternately output from the host system 1 , for example , will be discussed with reference to fig4 , 5 , and 6 , respectively in second , third , and fourth preferred embodiments , as follows . it is noted that the structure and function of the memory module 2 in the second , third , and fourth preferred embodiments are the same as shown in fig1 in the first preferred embodiment . fig4 is a view showing time series of variations of an address indicated by an initial value or a current value and an object of access for readout according to the second preferred embodiment . the address indicated by an initial value or a current value includes readout addresses designated by most recent three readout commands which have been output from the host system 1 and is stored in the address comparator 33 . in fig4 , the readout addresses stored in the address comparator 33 are put from the left side to the right side in an order in which the readout addresses are output from the host system 1 . more specifically , an expression “ pages p 1 , p 2 , and p 3 ” represents that the host system 1 outputs the readout addresses in an order “ p 1 , p 2 , and p 3 ”. the host system 1 reads out data on a page - by - page basis . also , the buffer 37 is able to store three pages of data , to correspond to the address comparator 33 which stores three addresses . if the address indicated by an initial value or a current value includes a new readout address , the buffer 37 becomes an object of access for readout . the buffer 37 holds data which has already been stored therein . if the address indicated by an initial value or a current value does not include a new readout address , the memory 4 becomes an object of access for readout . the buffer 37 updates data corresponding to the first readout command out of data corresponding to the above - noted most recent three readout commands , to data corresponding to a new readout command . the address comparator 33 updates the address indicated by an initial value or a current value regardless of whether or not the address indicated by an initial value or a current value includes a new readout address . more specifically , in this updating in the address comparator 33 , the readout address designated by the first readout command out of the readout addresses designated by the above - noted most recent three readout commands is erased , and a readout address designated by the new readout command is added . fig5 is a view showing time series of variations of an address indicated by an initial value or a current value and an object of access for readout according to the third preferred embodiment . the address indicated by an initial value or a current value includes readout addresses designated by two readout commands which have been output from the host system 1 the largest and the second - largest number of times , out of readout addresses designated by most recent five readout commands which have been output from the host system 1 and is stored in the address comparator 33 . the host system 1 reads out data on a page - by - page basis . also , the buffer 37 is able to store two pages of data , to correspond to the address comparator 33 which stores the top two addresses regarding the number of times of output . in the third preferred embodiment , the address comparator 33 needs to store not only the address indicated by an initial value or a current value , but also the readout addresses designated by the most recent five readout commands which have been output from the host system 1 . however , the buffer 37 does not need to store all data corresponding to the most recent five readout commands , and is required only to store date corresponding to the top two readout commands regarding the number of times of output . in one application of the third preferred embodiment , the address comparator 33 stores a histogram of the number of outputs of readout addresses designated by the readout commands which are output from the host system 1 . then , the address comparator 33 refers to the histogram stored therein , to select a readout address which was output many times and compares the selected readout address with a readout address designated by a readout command which has been most recently output from the host system 1 . an example of a process in which the address comparator 33 stores a histogram of the number of outputs is as follows . first , the address comparator 33 stores a histogram of the number of outputs of readout addresses designated by readout commands which are output from the host system 1 from the time of turn - on of the host system 1 to the time of turn - off of the host system 1 . then , a readout address which is output many times can be set as an address indicated by an initial value when the host system 1 is next turned on . in the example of the process in which the address comparator 33 stores a histogram of the number of outputs , next , the address comparator 33 stores a histogram of the number of outputs of readout addresses designated by readout commands which are output from the host system 1 during a period in which the host system 1 provides a predetermined number of outputs . then , a readout address which is output many times and satisfies predetermined requirements is set as a comparison address , and data at the comparison address is stored in the buffer 37 . after the data at the comparison address is stored in the buffer 37 , the address comparator 33 erases the histogram of the number of outputs which has already been stored therein . if one of readout addresses designated by readout commands which are expected to be output during a period in which the host system 1 next provides the predetermined number of new outputs matches the comparison address which has already been set , the host system 1 reads out data at the one readout address from the buffer 37 . the address comparator 33 stores a new histogram of the number of outputs of the readout addresses designated by readout commands which are output during the period in which the host system 1 next provides the predetermined number of the new outputs . a readout address which is output many times and satisfies the predetermined requirements is set as a new comparison address , and data at the new comparison address is stored in the buffer 37 . at that time , in a case where the data at the new comparison address has already been stored in the buffer 37 , it is unnecessary to newly store the data at the new comparison address in the buffer 37 . thereafter , the same process flow as discussed above will proceed . fig6 is a view showing time series of variations of an address indicated by an initial value or a current value and an object of access for readout according to the fourth preferred embodiment . the address indicated by an initial value or a current value includes three addresses indicated by a specific initial value , and is not updated by the address comparator 33 even while the host system 1 is consecutively outputting readout commands . the host system 1 reads out data on a page - by - page basis . also , the buffer 37 is able to store three pages of data , to correspond to the address comparator 33 which stores three addresses . specific examples of the above - noted addresses indicated by the specific initial value are as follows . cited firstly is a readout address designated by a readout command which is estimated to be probably output repeatedly from the host system 1 . in a case where such address is used , the address comparator 33 stores the address without updating it , and the buffer 37 , on the other hand , stores data at the address without updating it . the above firstly - cited address can be conveniently employed at the time of designing data which is expected to be stored in the memory 4 in a situation in which the host system 1 is estimated to probably read out specific data repeatedly . cited secondly as a specific example of the above - noted address indicated by the specific initial value is an address of data which is estimated to probably cause an error when processed by the host system 1 . for an error which occurs while the host system 1 is processing data , there is a case where an error may occur in the data itself while the data is being read out from the memory 4 and a case where an error may occur in other data while the data is being read out from the memory 4 , for example . in the case where an error occurs in other data while the data is being read out from the memory 4 , the likelihood of unintentional rewriting of data stored in a memory cell which is not an object of access for readout is taken into account . even when an error occurs while the host system 1 is processing data , the address comparator 33 stores the above - cited address without updating it , and the buffer 37 stores the data at the above - cited address without updating it . the above - cited address can be conveniently employed in a situation in which data which is estimated to probably cause an error is identified in view of a structure of a memory cell array of the memory 4 . according to the first , second , third , and fourth preferred embodiments , a “ read disturb ” phenomenon can be avoided or suppressed in data which is repeatedly read out by the host system 1 . the present invention can be applied to a case where an error actually occurs in data which is repeatedly read out by the host system 1 . each time an error occurs while the host system 1 is processing data , the address comparator 33 stores an address of data in which an error occurs . also , the buffer 37 stores error - corrected data . when the host system 1 is next turned on , the address comparator 33 keeps storing the address of the data in which the error occurs , which address has been stored therein at the time of previous turn - off of the host system 1 . the host system 1 can repeatedly read out data in which an error has actually occurred and has been corrected by gaining access to the buffer 37 without a need for access to the memory 4 , so that a “ read disturb ” phenomenon can be further avoided or suppressed . while the invention has been shown and described in detail , the foregoing description is in all aspects illustrative and not restrictive . it is therefore understood that numerous modifications and variations can be devised without departing from the scope of the invention .	6
the practice of the present invention will employ , unless otherwise indicated , conventional techniques of chemistry , molecular biology , cell biology , microbiology , recombinant dna and immunology , which are within the capabilities of a person of ordinary skill in the art . such techniques are explained in the literature . see , for example , j . sambrook , e . f . fritsch , and t . maniatis , 1989 , molecular cloning : a laboratory manual , second edition , books 1 - 3 , cold spring harbor laboratory press ; ausubel , f . m . et al . ( 1995 and periodic supplements ; current protocols in molecular biology , ch . 9 , 13 , and 16 , john wiley & amp ; sons , new york , n . y . ); b . roe , j . crabtree , and a . kahn , 1996 , dna isolation and sequencing : essential techniques , john wiley & amp ; sons ; j . m . polak and james o &# 39 ; d . mcgee , 1990 , in situ hybridization : principles and practice ; oxford university press ; m . j . gait ( editor ), 1984 , oligonucleotide synthesis : a practical approach , irl press ; and , d . m . j . lilley and j . e . dahlberg , 1992 , methods of enzymology : dna structure part a : synthesis and physical analysis of dna methods in enzymology , academic press . each of these general texts is herein incorporated by reference . by “ roscovitine activity ” or “ roscovitine - like activity ” is meant an activity exhibited by roscovitine . for example , roscovitine - like means capable of inhibiting cell cycle progression in late g1 / early s or m phase . preferably , said inhibition of cell cycle progression is through inhibiting cdks including cdk1 , cdk2 , cdk5 , cdk7 and cdk9 . a study of roscovitine activity is reported in mcclue et al . int . j . cancer , 2002 , 102 , 463 - 468 . the term “ marker ” or “ biomarker ” of roscovitine activity is used herein to refer to a gene whose expression in a sample derived from a cell or mammal is modulated , for example , up or down regulated , in response to treatment with roscovitine . a sample derived from a treated or untreated cell can be a lysate , extract or nucleic acid sample derived from a group of cells which can be from tissue culture or animal or human . a cell can be isolated from an individual ( e . g . from a blood sample ) or can be part of a tissue sample such as a biopsy . the term “ expression ” refers to the transcription of a gene &# 39 ; s dna template to produce the corresponding mrna and translation of this mrna to produce the corresponding gene product ( i . e ., a peptide , polypeptide , or protein ). by “ polynucleotide ” or “ polypeptide ” is meant the dna and protein sequences disclosed herein whose expression is modified in response to roscovitine . the terms also include close variants of those sequences , where the variant possesses the same biological activity as the reference sequence . such variant sequences include “ alleles ” ( variant sequences found at the same genetic locus in the same or closely - related species ), “ homologs ” ( a gene related to a second gene by descent from a common ancestral dna sequence , and separated by either speciation (“ ortholog ”) or genetic duplication (“ paralog ”)), so long as such variants retain the same biological activity as the reference sequence ( s ) disclosed herein . the invention is also intended to include detection of genes having silent polymorphisms and conservative substitutions in the polynucleotides and polypeptides disclosed herein , so long as such variants retain the same biological activity as the reference sequence ( s ) as disclosed herein . levels of gene expression may be determined using a number of different techniques . gene expression can be detected at the rna level . rna may be extracted from cells using rna extraction techniques including , for example , using acid phenol / guanidine isothiocyanate extraction ( rnazol b ; biogenesis ), or rneasy rna preparation kits ( qiagen ). typical assay formats utilising ribonucleic acid hybridisation include nuclear run - on assays , rt - pcr , rnase protection assays ( melton et al ., nuc . acids res . 12 : 7035 ), northern blotting and in situ hybridization . for northern blotting , rna samples are first separated by size via electrophoresis in an agarose gel under denaturing conditions . the rna is then transferred to a membrane , crosslinked and hybridized with a labeled probe . nonisotopic or high specific activity radiolabeled probes can be used including random - primed , nick - translated , or pcr - generated dna probes , in vitro transcribed rna probes , and oligonucleotides . additionally , sequences with only partial homology ( e . g ., cdna from a different species or genomic dna fragments that might contain an exon ) may be used as probes . nuclease protection assays ( including both ribonuclease protection assays and s1 nuclease assays ) provide an extremely sensitive method for the detection and quantitation of specific mrnas . the basis of the npa is solution hybridization of an antisense probe ( radiolabeled or nonisotopic ) to an rna sample . after hybridization , single - stranded , unhybridized probe and rna are degraded by nucleases . the remaining protected fragments are separated on an acrylamide gel . npas allow the simultaneous detection of several rna species . in situ hybridization ( ish ) is a powerful and versatile tool for the localization of specific mrnas in cells or tissues . hybridization of the probe takes place within the cell or tissue . since cellular structure is maintained throughout the procedure , ish provides information about the location of mrna within the tissue sample . the procedure begins by fixing samples in neutral - buffered formalin , and embedding the tissue in paraffin . the samples are then sliced into thin sections and mounted onto microscope slides . ( alternatively , tissue can be sectioned frozen and post - fixed in paraformaldehyde .) after a series of washes to dewax and rehydrate the sections , a proteinase k digestion is performed to increase probe accessibility , and a labeled probe is then hybridized to the sample sections . radiolabeled probes are visualized with liquid film dried onto the slides , while nonisotopically labeled probes are conveniently detected with calorimetric or fluorescent reagents . this latter method of detection is the basis for fluorescent in situ hybridisation ( fish ). methods for detection which can be employed include radioactive labels , enzyme labels , chemiluminescent labels , fluorescent labels and other suitable labels . typically , rt - pcr is used to amplify rna targets . in this process , the reverse transcriptase enzyme is used to convert rna to complementary dna ( cdna ) which can then be amplified to facilitate detection . relative quantitative rt - pcr involves amplifying an internal control simultaneously with the gene of interest . the internal control is used to normalize the samples . once normalized , direct comparisons of relative abundance of a specific mrna can be made across the samples . commonly used internal controls include , for example , gapdh , hprt , actin and cyclophilin . many dna amplification methods are known , most of which rely on an enzymatic chain reaction ( such as a polymerase chain reaction , a ligase chain reaction , or a self - sustained sequence replication ) or from the replication of all or part of the vector into which it has been cloned . many target and signal amplification methods have been described in the literature , for example , general reviews of these methods in landegren , u . et al ., science 242 : 229 - 237 ( 1988 ) and lewis , r ., genetic engineering news 10 : 1 , 54 - 55 ( 1990 ). pcr is a nucleic acid amplification method described inter alia in u . s . pat . nos . 4 , 683 , 195 and 4 , 683 , 202 . pcr can be used to amplify any known nucleic acid in a diagnostic context ( mok et al ., 1994 , gynaecologic oncology 52 : 247 - 252 ). self - sustained sequence replication ( 3sr ) is a variation of tas , which involves the isothermal amplification of a nucleic acid template via sequential rounds of reverse transcriptase ( rt ), polymerase and nuclease activities that are mediated by an enzyme cocktail and appropriate oligonucleotide primers ( guatelli et al ., 1990 , proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 87 : 1874 ). ligation amplification reaction or ligation amplification system uses dna ligase and four oligonucleotides , two per target strand . this technique is described by wu , d . y . and wallace , r . b ., 1989 , genomics 4 : 560 . in the qβ replicase technique , rna replicase for the bacteriophage qβ , which replicates single - stranded rna , is used to amplify the target dna , as described by lizardi et al ., 1988 , bio / technology 6 : 1197 . quantitative pcr ( q - pcr ) is a technique which allows relative amounts of transcripts within a sample to be determined . alternative amplification technology can be exploited in the present invention . for example , rolling circle amplification ( lizardi et al ., 1998 , nat genet 19 : 225 ) is an amplification technology available commercially ( rcat ™) which is driven by dna polymerase and can replicate circular oligonucleotide probes with either linear or geometric kinetics under isothermal conditions . a further technique , strand displacement amplification ( sda ; walker et al ., 1992 , proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 80 : 392 ) begins with a specifically defined sequence unique to a specific target . suitable probes for detected the markers of roscovitine activity identified herein may conveniently be packaged in the form of a test kit in a suitable container . in such kits the probe may be bound to a solid support where the assay format for which the kit is designed requires such binding . the kit may also contain suitable reagents for treating the sample to be probed , hybridising the probe to nucleic acid in the sample , control reagents , instructions , and the like . suitable kits may comprise , for example , primers for a qpcr reaction or labelled probes for performing fish . gene expression may also be detected by measuring the polypeptides encoded by the gene markers of roscovitine activity . this may be achieved by using molecules which bind to the polypeptides encoded by any one of the genes identified herein as a marker of roscovitine activity . suitable molecules / agents which bind either directly or indirectly to the polypeptides in order to detect the presence of the protein include naturally occurring molecules such as peptides and proteins , for example antibodies , or they may be synthetic molecules . methods for production of antibodies are known by those skilled in the art . if polyclonal antibodies are desired , a selected mammal ( e . g ., mouse , rabbit , goat , horse , etc .) is immunised with an immunogenic polypeptide bearing an epitope ( s ) from a polypeptide . serum from the immunised animal is collected and treated according to known procedures . if serum containing polyclonal antibodies to an epitope from a polypeptide contains antibodies to other antigens , the polyclonal antibodies can be purified by immunoaffinity chromatography . techniques for producing and processing polyclonal antisera are known in the art . in order to generate a larger immunogenic response , polypeptides or fragments thereof maybe haptenised to another polypeptide for use as immunogens in animals or humans . monoclonal antibodies directed against epitopes in polypeptides can also be readily produced by one skilled in the art . the general methodology for making monoclonal antibodies by hybridomas is well known . immortal antibody - producing cell lines can be created by cell fusion , and also by other techniques such as direct transformation of b lymphocytes with oncogenic dna , or transfection with epstein - barr virus . panels of monoclonal antibodies produced against epitopes in the polypeptides of the invention can be screened for various properties ; i . e ., for isotype and epitope affinity . an alternative technique involves screening phage display libraries where , for example the phage express scfv fragments on the surface of their coat with a large variety of complementarity determining regions ( cdrs ). this technique is well known in the art . for the purposes of this invention , the term “ antibody ”, unless specified to the contrary , includes fragments of whole antibodies which retain their binding activity for a target antigen . such fragments include fv , f ( ab ′) and f ( ab ′) 2 fragments , as well as single chain antibodies ( scfv ). furthermore , the antibodies and fragments thereof may be humanised antibodies , for example as described in ep - a - 239400 . standard laboratory techniques such as immunoblotting as described above can be used to detect altered levels of markers of roscovitine activity , as compared with untreated cells in the same cell population . gene expression may also be determined by detecting changes in post - translational processing of polypeptides or post - transcriptional modification of nucleic acids . for example , differential phosphorylation of polypeptides , the cleavage of polypeptides or alternative splicing of rna , and the like may be measured . levels of expression of gene products such as polypeptides , as well as their post - translational modification , may be detected using proprietary protein assays or techniques such as 2d polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis . antibodies may be used in detecting markers of roscovitine activity identified herein in biological samples by a method which comprises : ( a ) providing an antibody of the invention ; ( b ) incubating a biological sample with said antibody under conditions which allow for the formation of an antibody - antigen complex ; and ( c ) determining whether antibody - antigen complex comprising said antibody is formed . suitable samples include extracts tissues such as brain , breast , ovary , lung , colon , pancreas , testes , liver , muscle and bone tissues or from neoplastic growths derived from such tissues . other suitable examples include blood or urine samples . antibodies that specifically bind to protein markers of roscovitine activity can be used in diagnostic methods and kits that are well known to those of ordinary skill in the art to detect or quantify the markers of roscovitine activity proteins in a body fluid or tissue . results from these tests can be used to diagnose or predict the occurrence or recurrence of a cancer and other cell cycle progression - mediated diseases or to assess the effectiveness of drug dosage and treatment . antibodies can be assayed for immunospecific binding by any method known in the art . the immunoassays which can be used include but are not limited to competitive and non - competitive assay systems using techniques such as western blots , immunohistochemistry , radioimmunoassays , elisa , sandwich immunoassays , immunoprecipitation assays , precipitin reactions , gel diffusion precipitin reactions , immunodiffusion assays , agglutination assays , complement - fixation assays , immunoradiometric assays , fluorescent immunoassays and protein a immunoassays . such assays are routine in the art ( see , for example , ausubel et al ., eds , 1994 , current protocols in molecular biology , vol . 1 , john wiley & amp ; sons , inc ., new york , which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety ). antibodies for use in the invention may be bound to a solid support and / or packaged into kits in a suitable container along with suitable reagents , controls , instructions and the like . array technology and the various techniques and applications associated with it is described generally in numerous textbooks and documents . these include lemieux et al ., 1998 , molecular breeding 4 : 277 - 289 ; schena and davis . parallel analysis with biological chips . in pcr methods manual ( eds . m . innis , d . gelfand , j . sninsky ); schena and davis , 1999 , genes , genomes and chips . in dna microarrays : a practical approach ( ed . m . schena ), oxford university press , oxford , uk , 1999 ); the chipping forecast ( nature genetics special issue ; january 1999 supplement ); mark schena ( ed . ), microarray biochip technology , ( eaton publishing company ); cortes , 2000 , the scientist 14 ( 17 ): 25 ; gwynne and page , microarray analysis : the next revolution in molecular biology , science , 1999 , aug . 6 ; eakins and chu , 1999 , trends in biotechnology , 17 : 217 - 218 , and also at various world wide web sites . array technology overcomes the disadvantages with traditional methods in molecular biology , which generally work on a “ one gene in one experiment ” basis , resulting in low throughput and the inability to appreciate the “ whole picture ” of gene function . currently , the major applications for array technology include the identification of sequence ( gene / gene mutation ) and the determination of expression level ( abundance ) of genes . gene expression profiling may make use of array technology , optionally in combination with proteomics techniques ( celis et al ., 2000 , febs lett , 480 ( 1 ): 2 - 16 ; lockhart and winzeler , 2000 , nature 405 ( 6788 ): 827 - 836 ; khan et al ., 1999 , 20 ( 2 ): 223 - 9 ). other applications of array technology are also known in the art ; for example , gene discovery , cancer research ( marx , 2000 , science 289 : 1670 - 1672 ; scherf et al et al ., 2000 , nat genet 24 ( 3 ): 236 - 44 ; ross et al ., 2000 , nat genet 2000 , 24 ( 3 ): 227 - 35 ), snp analysis ( wang et al ., 1998 , science 280 ( 5366 ): 1077 - 82 ), drug discovery , pharmacogenomics , disease diagnosis ( for example , utilising microfluidics devices : chemical & amp ; engineering news , feb . 22 , 1999 , 77 ( 8 ): 27 - 36 ), toxicology ( rockett and dix ( 2000 ), xenobiotica 30 ( 2 ): 155 - 77 ; afshari et al ., 1999 , cancer res 59 ( 19 ): 4759 - 60 ) and toxicogenomics ( a hybrid of functional genomics and molecular toxicology ). the goal of toxicogenomics is to find correlations between toxic responses to toxicants and changes in the genetic profiles of the objects exposed to such toxicants ( nuwaysir et al ., 1999 , molecular carcinogenesis 24 : 153 - 159 ). in the context of the present invention , array technology can be used , for example , in the analysis of the expression of one or more of the protein markers of roscovitine activity identified herein . in one embodiment , array technology may be used to assay the effect of a candidate compound on a number of the markers of roscovitine activity identified herein simultaneously . accordingly , another aspect of the present invention is to provide microarrays that include at least one , at least two or at least several of the nucleic acids identified in any of fig1 through 8 , or fragments thereof , or protein or antibody arrays . in general , any library or group of samples may be arranged in an orderly manner into an array , by spatially separating the members of the library or group . examples of suitable libraries for arraying include nucleic acid libraries ( including dna , cdna , oligonucleotide , etc . libraries ), peptide , polypeptide and protein libraries , as well as libraries comprising any molecules , such as ligand libraries , among others . accordingly , where reference is made to a “ library ” in this document , unless the context dictates otherwise , such reference should be taken to include reference to a library in the form of an array . in the context of the present invention , a “ library ” may include a sample of markers of roscovitine activity as identified herein . the samples ( e . g ., members of a library ) are generally fixed or immobilised onto a solid phase , preferably a solid substrate , to limit diffusion and admixing of the samples . in a preferred embodiment , libraries of dna binding ligands may be prepared . in particular , the libraries may be immobilised to a substantially planar solid phase , including membranes and non - porous substrates such as plastic and glass . furthermore , the samples are preferably arranged in such a way that indexing ( i . e ., reference or access to a particular sample ) is facilitated . typically the samples are applied as spots in a grid formation . common assay systems may be adapted for this purpose . for example , an array may be immobilised on the surface of a microplate , either with multiple samples in a well , or with a single sample in each well . furthermore , the solid substrate may be a membrane , such as a nitrocellulose or nylon membrane ( for example , membranes used in blotting experiments ). alternative substrates include glass , or silica based substrates . thus , the samples are immobilised by any suitable method known in the art , for example , by charge interactions , or by chemical coupling to the walls or bottom of the wells , or the surface of the membrane . other means of arranging and fixing may be used , for example , pipetting , drop - touch , piezoelectric means , ink - jet and bubblejet technology , electrostatic application , etc . in the case of silicon - based chips , photolithography may be utilised to arrange and fix the samples on the chip . the samples may be arranged by being “ spotted ” onto the solid substrate ; this may be done by hand or by making use of robotics to deposit the sample . in general , arrays may be described as macroarrays or microarrays , the difference being the size of the sample spots . macroarrays typically contain sample spot sizes of about 300 microns or larger and may be easily imaged by existing gel and blot scanners . the sample spot sizes in microarrays are typically less than 200 microns in diameter and these arrays usually contain thousands of spots . thus , microarrays may require specialized robotics and imaging equipment , which may need to be custom made . instrumentation is described generally in a review by cortese , 2000 , the scientist 14 ( 11 ): 26 . techniques for producing immobilised libraries of dna molecules have been described in the art . generally , most prior art methods described how to synthesise single - stranded nucleic acid molecule libraries , using for example masking techniques to build up various permutations of sequences at the various discrete positions on the solid substrate . u . s . pat . no . 5 , 837 , 832 , the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference , describes an improved method for producing dna arrays immobilised to silicon substrates based on very large scale integration technology . in particular , u . s . pat . no . 5 , 837 , 832 describes a strategy called “ tiling ” to synthesize specific sets of probes at spatially - defined locations on a substrate which may be used to produced the immobilised dna libraries of the present invention . u . s . pat . no . 5 , 837 , 832 also provides references for earlier techniques that may also be used . arrays of peptides ( or peptidomimetics ) may also be synthesised on a surface in a manner that places each distinct library member ( e . g ., unique peptide sequence ) at a discrete , predefined location in the array . the identity of each library member is determined by its spatial location in the array . the locations in the array where binding interactions between a predetermined molecule ( e . g ., a target or probe ) and reactive library members occur is determined , thereby identifying the sequences of the reactive library members on the basis of spatial location . these methods are described in u . s . pat . no . 5 , 143 , 854 ; wo 90 / 15070 and wo 92 / 10092 ; fodor et al ., 1991 , science 251 : 767 ; dower and fodor , 1991 , ann . rep . med . chem . 26 : 271 . to aid detection , targets and probes may be labelled with any readily detectable reporter , for example , a fluorescent , bioluminescent , phosphorescent , radioactive , etc reporter . such reporters , their detection , coupling to targets / probes , etc are discussed elsewhere in this document . labelling of probes and targets is also disclosed in shalon et al ., 1996 , genome res 6 ( 7 ): 639 - 45 . format i : probe cdna (˜ 500 -˜ 5 , 000 bases long ) is immobilized to a solid surface such as glass using robot spotting and exposed to a set of targets either separately or in a mixture . this method is widely considered as having been developed at stanford university ( ekins and chu , 1999 , trends in biotechnology , 17 : 217 - 218 ). format ii : an array of oligonucleotide (˜ 20 -˜ 25 - mer oligos ) or peptide nucleic acid ( pna ) probes is synthesized either in situ ( on - chip ) or by conventional synthesis followed by on - chip immobilization . the array is exposed to labeled sample dna , hybridized , and the identity / abundance of complementary sequences are determined . such a dna chip is sold by affymetrix , inc ., under the genechip ® trademark . examples of some commercially available microarray formats are set out , for example , in marshall and hodgson , 1998 , nature biotechnology 16 ( 1 ): 27 - 31 . data analysis is also an important part of an experiment involving arrays . the raw data from a microarray experiment typically are images , which need to be transformed into gene expression matrices — tables where rows represent for example genes , columns represent for example various samples such as tissues or experimental conditions , and numbers in each cell for example characterize the expression level of the particular gene in the particular sample . these matrices have to be analyzed further , if any knowledge about the underlying biological processes is to be extracted . methods of data analysis ( including supervised and unsupervised data analysis as well as bioinformatics approaches ) are disclosed in brazma and vilo j , 2000 , febs lett 480 ( 1 ): 17 - 24 . as disclosed above , proteins , polypeptides , etc may also be immobilised in arrays . for example , antibodies have been used in microarray analysis of the proteome using protein chips ( borrebaeck calif ., 2000 , immunol today 21 ( 8 ): 379 - 82 ). polypeptide arrays are reviewed in , for example , macbeath and schreiber , 2000 , science , 289 ( 5485 ): 1760 - 1763 . the invention also includes use of the markers of roscovitine activity , antibodies to those proteins , and compositions comprising those proteins and / or their antibodies in diagnosis or prognosis of diseases characterized by proliferative activity , particularly in individuals being treated with roscovitine . as used herein , the term “ prognostic method ” means a method that enables a prediction regarding the progression of a disease of a human or animal diagnosed with the disease , in particular , cancer . in particular , cancers of interest with respect to roscovitine treatment include breast , lung , gastric , head and neck , colorectal , renal , pancreatic , uterine , hepatic , bladder , endometrial and prostate cancers and leukemias . in one embodiment , prognostics may include detecting the expression of markers whose expression correlates with roscovitine sensitivity or resistance in a method of predicting the response of a patient to treatment . the term “ diagnostic method ” as used herein means a method that enables a determination of the presence or type of cancer in or on a human or animal . suitably the marker allows success of roscovitine treatment to be assessed . as discussed above , suitable diagnostics include probes directed to any of the genes as identified herein such as , for example , qpcr primers , fish probes and so forth . the present invention will now be described with reference to the following examples . ht29 colon cancer cells were seeded into t175 flasks at 3 × 10 6 cells per flask and allowed to attach for 48 h . cells were then treated with 50 μm cyc202 for either 4 , 12 , 24 or 48 h prior to harvesting by trypsinisation . a cell pellet was made for protein analysis and rna analysis . to harvest cells , the medium was removed and cells were incubated with 5 ml trypsin for 5 min at 37 ° c . to detach them from the plastic . the cells were then pelleted , washed in ice cold pbs and resuspended in ice cold lysis buffer containing 50 mm hepes ph7 . 4 , 250 mm nacl , 0 . 1 % np40 , 1 mm dtt , 1 mm edta , 1 mm naf , 10 mm β - glycerophosphate , 0 . 1 mm sodium orthovanadate and 1 complete protease inhibitor cocktail tablet ( roche , east sussex , uk ) per 10 ml of lysis buffer for 30 minutes on ice . lysates were centrifuged at approx . 18 , 000 × g for 10 minutes at 4 ° c . to remove cellular debris . the supernatant was stored at − 80 ° c . prior to use . the protein concentration of lysates was determined using the bca protein assay ( pierce , rockford , usa ). proteins were separated by sds - page using novex precast tris - glycine gels ( invitrogen , groningen , the netherlands ) and transferred to immobilon - p membranes ( millipore , bedford , usa ). membranes were blocked for 1 hour in tbs ™ 50 mm tris ph7 . 5 , 150 mm nacl , 0 . 1 % tween 20 ( sigma , dorset , uk ) and 3 % milk . immunoblotting with primary antibodies diluted in tbs ™ was performed at 4 ° c . overnight , followed by a 1 hour incubation with hrp - conjugated secondary antibodies at room temperature . membranes were washed with ecl reagents and exposed to hyperfilm ( amersham pharmacia biotech , buckinghamshire , uk ). antibodies used were : phospho - rb ser780 1 : 5000 , phospho - erk1 / 2 1 : 1000 , c - jun 1 : 200 ( cell signalling technologies , beverly , usa ), total rb sc - 50 1 : 2000 , cyclin b2 sc - 5233 1 : 100 , egr - 1 1 : 200 sc - 189 ( santa cruz biotechnology , santa cruz , usa ), total erk2 1 : 10000 ( kindly provided by prof . chris marshall , institute of cancer research , london , uk ), phospho - rb ser608 1 : 2000 ( dr . sibylle mittnacht , institute of cancer research , london , uk ), phospho - rb thr821 1 : 1000 ( biosource , nivelles , belgium ), non - phosphorylated rb 1 : 500 , aurora 1 1 : 250 , mcl - 1 2 μg / ml ( bd biosciences , oxford , uk ), plk - 1 2 μg / ml zymed , san francisco , calif . ), gapdh 1 : 5000 ( chemicon , temecula , calif .) goat anti - rabbit and goat anti - mouse hrp - conjugated secondary antibodies 1 : 5000 ( biorad , hercules , usa ), rabbit anti - sheep hrp - conjugated secondary antibody 1 : 2000 ( upstate biotechnology , lake placid , usa ). total rna was extracted from cell pellets using trizol ( life technologies ) and mrna was purified using the qiagen oligotex system . mrna from control and treated cells was labelled with either cy3 or cy5 ( nen or amersham ) fluorescent dctps respectively , creating cdna probes . cdna microarray slides are made and used as described in eisen , mb and brown po . ( 1999 ) dna arrays for analysis of gene expression . methods in enzymology 303 : 179 - 205 . the cdna probes were then hybridised to the cdna microarray slides overnight and then washed and scanned using an axon labs genepix 4000b scanner . the slides were verified using genepix software and normalised prior to analysis in genespring . fig1 through 8 represent the mrna expression profiles of ht29 cells treated with 50 μm cyc202 for 4 , 12 , 24 and 48 h respectively when compared to asynchronous control cells . a 2 fold cut - off was used to assign significance to a change in mrna expression . therefore , any mrna with a normalised ratio of medians less than 0 . 5 ( fig1 , 5 and 7 ) or greater than 2 ( fig2 , 6 and 8 ) is deemed significant . fig9 a shows the mrna expression over the time course of 50 μm cyc202 in ht29 cells of selected genes of interest . these changes were then validated by western blotting ( fig9 b ). 24 h treatments with olomoucine ( 174 μm ) and purvalanol a ( 12 μm ) were included for comparison . relating the microarray data to the western validation , cyclin b2 , aurora 1 and polo - like kinase 1 are all markedly inhibited in agreement with the microarray data . egr - 1 mrna is induced from as early as 4 h and is maintained above the two fold cut off for the duration of the experiment whereas egr - 1 protein is transiently induced at 12 h after treatment . c - jun mrna is induced to significant levels from 4 h and is maintained at that level for the duration of the experiment , c - jun protein is induced at 4 h and 12 h ( and is in the phosphorylated , active form ) but is lost after 24 h . all publications mentioned in the above specification , and references cited in said publications , are herein incorporated by reference . various modifications and variations of the described methods and system of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention . although the invention has been described in connection with specific preferred embodiments , it should be understood that the invention as claimed should not be unduly limited to such specific embodiments . indeed , various modifications of the described modes for carrying out the invention which are obvious to those skilled in molecular biology or related fields are intended to be within the scope of the following claims .	2
fig1 shows a motor vehicle roof including a fixed roof structure 10 which has a roof opening 11 which extends from near the front edge 12 of the fixed roof structure 10 to near the rear edge 13 of the fixed roof structure 10 . on the bottom of the fixed roof structure 10 , a frame ( not shown ) is attached which , on each side of the roof opening 11 , has guide rails in which the front cover 14 and the rear cover 15 are movably supported in the longitudinal direction of the motor vehicle . furthermore , the two covers 14 , 15 are each provided with a pivoting - out mechanism ( not shown ) by which the front cover 14 and the rear cover 15 can be raised or lowered into the ventilation positions on the respective rear edge 16 and 17 of the covers with respect to the front edge 18 and 19 of the covers , or alternatively , on the front edge 18 and 19 of the covers with respect to the rear edge 16 and 17 of the covers . moreover , the two covers 14 , 15 can be raised or lowered about their front or rear edges , or one of the covers 14 , 15 can be raised or lowered about its front edge and the other cover can be raised or lowered about its rear edge . for their pivoting motion and their displacement motion along the guide rails , the covers 14 , 15 are each driven by a separate drive which can be made in the known manner as an electric motor with a pinion and compressively - stiff drive cables . as shown in fig2 d , a displacement mechanism ( not shown ) lowers one of the covers 14 , 15 as it is pushed lengthwise to under the other cover . as shown in fig2 a , in the closed position of the motor vehicle roof shown , the front cover 14 closes a front section 20 of the roof opening 11 , when the covers 14 , 15 are the same size , while the rear cover 15 closes the rear section 21 or the rear half . fig2 b shows a position in which the rear edge 16 of the front cover 14 and the rear edge 17 of the rear cover 15 are raised for ventilation purposes by pivoting about the respective front edges 18 and 19 . in fig2 c , the front cover 14 is selectively moved to the rear out of its closed position along its guide rails , and in doing so , is lowered and pushed entirely under the rear cover 15 which is still pivoted into the ventilation position in order to completely clear the front section 20 of the roof opening 11 . in fig2 d , the front cover 14 is lowered out of its closed position and is selectively moved along its guide rails to the rear to under the rear cover 15 which is pushed out of its closed position , forward into the middle of the roof opening 11 . one part of the front section 20 and of the rear section 21 of the roof opening 11 at a time are thus cleared , in a middle arrangement of the covers 14 , 15 , two same - sized openings sections 20 and 21 being formed . in another embodiment , the front cover 14 can be lowered via its raising mechanism on its front edge 18 into a ventilation position . according to fig2 e , a roof position can be set in which the front cover 14 is lowered on its front edge 18 , while the rear edge 17 of the rear cover 15 is raised toward the top . in this way a ventilation opening 22 is formed on the front edge of the roof opening 11 and a ventilation position 23 is formed on the rear edge of the roof opening 11 . as shown in fig2 f , for complete opening of the rear section or of the rear section 21 of the roof opening 11 , the rear cover 15 can be pushed out of its closed position forward to under the front cover 14 . alternatively , the rear cover 15 is pushed forward on its guide rails , after the front cover 14 has been lowered ( not shown ). in the embodiment of the motor vehicle roof shown in fig2 g , the rear cover 15 can be lowered at its front edge into a ventilation position by way of its raising mechanism , while the front cover 14 can be raised at its rear edge 16 . in the position of the two covers 14 , 15 shown in fig2 g , a middle ventilation opening 24 is opened at roughly twice the height obtainable by either cover by itself . finally , as shown in fig2 h , in another embodiment of the motor vehicle roof both the front cover 14 and also the rear cover 15 on their front edges 18 and 19 can be lowered in the ventilation positions . for complete opening of the front and the rear sections 20 , 21 of the roof opening 11 , or for partial opening of at least one of the front section 20 and the rear section 21 of the roof opening 11 , in the described embodiments the front cover 14 is pushed to the rear and the rear cover 15 is pushed to the front by the corresponding path , one cover being pushed horizontally on its guide rails and the other cover being lowered to under the former cover . the control of the drives of the two covers 14 , 15 is made such that the pivoting motions of the covers 14 , 15 and also their displacement motions can be executed independently of one another , collision of the covers 14 , 15 being precluded during the displacement by the arrangement of the guide rails . the embodiments of the motor vehicle roof shown in fig3 a - 3d are formed essentially , like the above described examples , however , they include a wind deflector 25 which is located between the front edge 12 of the fixed roof structure 10 and the front cover 14 , and can be raised at its rear edge 26 by being pivoted up about its front edge 36 . the wind deflector 25 can be made as a louver which is located as a layered part of the fixed roof structure 10 , flush on the latter , and can be pivoted up out of this flush arrangement so that the fixed part of the roof structure 10 which remains underneath the louver preserves its fixed arrangement . as shown in fig3 a , in an alternative embodiment , the wind deflector 25 forms a movable part of the fixed roof structure 10 in its entirety which can be pivoted up as the wind deflector unit of the fixed roof structure 10 and thus can clear an additional ventilation opening 22 between the raised rear edge 26 of the wind deflector 25 and the front edge 18 of the front cover 14 which is located in its closed position . the wind deflector 25 can be used in all the motor vehicle roofs which are shown in fig2 a - 2h . fig3 b shows a position of the covers 14 , 15 in which the front cover 14 is pushed out of its closed position to the rear into the middle of the roof opening 11 and to under the rear cover 15 while the rear cover 15 is raised at its rear edge 17 in the ventilation position . as shown in fig3 c , the rear cover 15 is lowered at its front edge 19 into the ventilation position . while , when the front cover 14 is closed , the front ventilation opening 22 which is formed by the raised wind deflector 25 and the ventilation opening 24 which is partially cleared by the rear cover 15 , yield good , draft - free ventilation , the ventilation action is improved even more when , as shown in the figure , the front cover 14 , 16 is pivoted out at its rear edge into the ventilation position so that the ventilation opening 24 is opened with its greatest height which is twice that obtainable by moving the covers as shown for opening 24 in fig3 b and 3d , for example . the motor vehicle roof shown in fig3 d contains a front cover 14 which can be lowered at its front edge 18 into the ventilation position . with the wind deflector 25 pivoted up , between the rear edge 26 of the wind deflector 25 and the front edge 18 of the front cover 14 lowered relative to the closed position ( on the broken line of the roof ), thus , a much larger front ventilation opening 22 is formed which , in conjunction with the ventilation opening 24 which has been cleared by the rear cover 15 , enables even more improved ventilation by air circulation from the interior through the front ventilation opening 22 to the outside over the front cover 14 and though the middle ventilation opening 24 back into the interior . fig4 a to 4 c show a motor vehicle roof including a headliner 27 having a front headliner unit 28 which is assigned to the front section 20 of the roof opening 11 and the front , especially transparent , cover 14 , and a rear headliner unit 29 which is assigned to the rear section 21 of the roof opening 11 and the rear , especially transparent , cover 15 . the headliner units 28 , 29 are movably located on each side of the roof opening 11 on a respective one of the guide rails 30 , 31 . the rear guide rail 31 extends in the plane near the roof , forward to beyond the rear edge 16 of the front cover 14 . the front guide rail 30 , which runs roughly in the area under the front cover 14 approximately in one plane with the rear guide rail 31 near the motor vehicle roof , is lowered at the beginning of the middle section 32 of the headliner to under the rear guide rail 31 , and extends underneath from it at a distance which is slightly greater than the thickness of the front headliner unit 28 . at least the front headliner unit 28 is divided in the longitudinal direction into a plurality , for example , three headliner elements 33 , 34 , 35 , which are connected flexibly to one another and are connected especially offset relative to one another , or so as to pivot about one or more transverse axes . by dividing the headliner unit 28 into headliner elements 33 , 34 , 35 which are shorter in the longitudinal direction , they can follow , as a result of their greater flexibility , the path of the front guide rail 30 which is curved in an s - shape over a short distance ( thereby reducing headroom in the smallest possible region ) and can be guided into the lower deposition plane under the middle section 32 . as shown in fig4 c , the rear headliner unit 29 is pushed on its guideway 31 over the front headliner unit 28 which is located underneath into the middle section 32 of the headliner so that the two headliner units 28 , 29 clear front and rear sections 20 , 21 of the roof opening 11 . the rear headliner unit 29 can also be divided into two or more headliner elements , this division not being necessary in this embodiment , in which the rear headliner unit 29 is guided roughly on the largely planar path of the guide rail . the plane in which the guide rails 30 , 31 are essentially arranged can be flat or curved according to the shape of the fixed roof structure . it is noted that the displacement mechanisms for the covers and headliners have not been shown or described in specific detail since such forms no part of the invention . those skilled in the sunroof art , given the motions described , will easily be able to apply any of various known drive and linkage techniques to achieve the described effects .	1
examples of a process for manufacturing embodiments of emi shields are illustrated in fig1 . in a first step , the emi shield is manufactured from a thermoformable film , such as general electric &# 39 ; s lexan ®. the thermoformable film may be in small or large sheets or a long continuous reel , depending on the scale of production required . generally , a formable film may be used and , in addition , non - formable films may be used if the required shape is flat . the thermoformable film is coated with a conductive extensible ink , such as acheson colloids company &# 39 ; s electrodag ® sp - 405 ink to form an extensible conductive coating . the extensible ink may be any extensible ink in the case of a 3 - d shape , and any conductive ink ( or paint or plating ) in the case of 2 - d shapes . the extensible ink can be applied to the film by a variety of printing or film coating processes , such as flexographic printing , screen printing , gravure printing , offset printing , letter press printing , pad printing , slot coating , flood coating , spray coating , and jet printing . depending on the configuration of the part used during the forming process , there can be a considerable amount of elongation of the emi shield where geometric features of the shield are concentrated . this in turn may put excessive stress on the extensible ink . if the elongation of the extensible ink is too severe , this will result in fracture of the conductive layer , which in turn leads to loss of conductivity and loss of shielding . ideally , the conductive layer would be one that could be stretched infinitely over the entire part . in practice , this is difficult as most highly conductive materials will tend to fracture . also , materials that are best for stretching are generally not conductive enough to be used as conductive shields . in another embodiment the extensible conductive coating can be formed from a combination of conductive fibers with an extensible film . the extensible film can be selected from materials that , in general , have a lower glass transition temperature than the thermoformable film and , in one embodiment , can be a polymer . the polymer selected for use with the conductive fibers can be very thermoplastic , to the point of almost becoming a liquid , which results in a combined polymer / conductive fiber layer that becomes highly compliant to changes in geometry caused by thermoforming the thermoformable film , while the conductive fibers continue to interact with negligible loss of conductivity . fig2 illustrates an extensible conductive coating 20 on a thermoformable film 30 . in one embodiment the conductive fibers can be placed on the thermoformable film and the extensible film can be placed on top of the conductive fibers . the arrangement of the thermoformable film , the conductive fibers , and the extensible film can be laminated to allow the conductive fibers to integrate with the extensible film . in another embodiment , the extensible film can be processed into fibers which can be mixed with the conductive fibers . the mixture of conductive fibers and the fibers from the extensible film can be deposited on the thermoformable film at a temperature which at least partially melts the extensible film fibers . materials for the conductive fibers include stainless steel fibers from baeckert , naslon — sus316l from nippon seisen co . of osaka - city , japan , panex chopped fiber — px33cf1000 - 01 from zoltex corporation of st . louis , mo ., and x - static silver nylon fiber from instrument specialties of scranton , pa . any fiber which is at least about 3 . 175 mm ( 0 . 125 inches ) long and less than about 0 . 254 mm ( 0 . 01 inches ) in diameter may be used , provided that the outer surface of the fiber is coated with metal sufficient to produce bulk resistivity of the material to less than about 50 milliohm - cm , preferably less than about 25 milliohm - cm , more preferably less than bout 10 milliohm - cm , as determined by mil - g - 83528 paragraph 4 . 6 . 11 / astm 991 . pure component fibers can be used as well , provided the bulk resistivity is below about these values . in addition , some other conductive materials that can be used are silver loaded particles , silver / copper flake , silver / nylon fiber , silver carbon fibers , tin over copper flash , and tin . materials for the extensible film include polypropylene and polyethylene fibers or films , both available from dow chemicals . other suitable polymers for the extensible film include polystyrene , acrylonitrile - butydiene - styrene ( abs ), styrene - acrylonitrile ( san ), polycarbonate , polyester , and polyamide , as long as the thermoplastic polymer has a lower glass transition temperature than the supporting polymer shield , for example at least about 20 degrees c . lower . additionally , a silicone material can also be used for the extensible film . the extensible conductive coating can be made by blending polyethylene and / or polypropylene fibers with the conductive fibers and calendering or laminating the composite with the thermoformable film . other methods for applying the extensible conductive coating to the thermoformable film include wet coating , carding , plating , coating , flocking , dry laid screening , and vacuum metal / ion sputter techniques . various combinations and permutations of the material for the conductive fibers , the material for the extensible film , and the method of applying the extensible conductive coating made from the extensible film and conductive fibers to the thermoformable film can be chosen to result in a desired surface conductivity and shielding effectiveness of the emi shield . in some embodiments the conductive coating may be applied to both sides of the thermoformable film . in other embodiments the conductive coating may be applied to one side of the thermoformable film . the conductive coating may be applied uniformly , or may be applied in a pattern , such as a grid . in still other embodiments the conductive coating may be applied in discrete areas or zones . in a second step , the resulting coated film is then cut to the desired 2 - d shape . any cutting process known to those skilled in the art can be used such as water jet cutting , laser cutting die - cutting , hot wire cutting , etc . the film can be cut to produce a single shape or a plurality of similar or different shapes , which can be held together by sprues . next , in a third step , the cut film is thermoformed into the desired 3 - d shape . any method of thermoforming known to those skilled in the art may be used . the complexity of the 3 - d shape can vary significantly , from a simple box , formed by a single rectangle draw , to a multi - chamber part with different chamber sizes and depths . see fig3 a - 3c for examples . one method of thermoforming , positive forming , is illustrated in fig4 a - 4c . the thermoformable film 30 and the extensible conductive coating 20 are heated by a heater 50 to soften the thermoformable film 30 and the extensible conductive coating 20 . the thermoformable film 30 and extensible conductive coating 20 are then applied to a mold 60 and a vacuum 70 drawn to conform the thermoformable film 30 and the conductive coating 20 to the mold 60 . once cooled sufficiently , the contoured thermoformable film 30 and extensible conductive coating 20 are removed from the mold 60 . lastly , a conductive elastomer gasket is dispensed onto the coated thermoformed film in any desired pattern , using fip dispensing equipment described below and illustrated in fig6 . the fip gasket is typically applied about a perimeter , edge , lip , or other similar structure ; however , in more complex parts , the fip gasket may be applied to internal or external walls , dividers , or other similar surfaces forming with adjoining structure in the final assembled component or housing . the conductive elastomer gasket is then cured , either at ambient temperature or via elevated temperatures , for example , in a continuous oven . in addition to using fip methods for manufacturing the elastomer gasket , other gaskets known to those skilled in the art for shielding emi can be used . for example , the gasket may be other than conductive elastomers including , but not limited to , metallized fabric wrapped foam gaskets , metal fingers , knitted gaskets , a printable foamable ink , etc . in some cases , the finished component may incorporate a separate environmental gasket , for example a polyurethane gasket . the finished shielding element is then shipped to the assembly plant , where the entire shielding function is accomplished by simply placing this single piece into an enclosure . examples of shielding composite cross - sections are shown in fig1 fig3 c , and fig4 . note that the four general process steps do not have to be performed in this particular order and , in fact , may be performed in any order . for example , the fip gasket may be applied either before or after coating , cutting , or forming . similarly , the coating may be applied either before or after cutting , forming , or application of the fip gasket . fig5 is a table which shows a summary of surface resistivity and shield effectiveness test results for various conductive coatings . the table shows the conductive materials , the base extensible films , and the manufacturing methods for applying the conductive coating to the thermoformable film . the table also shows the thickness of the conductive coating and exemplary draw amounts of the conductive coating . the test results of surface resistivity and shielding effectiveness are provided for both an unformed conductive layer , after application of the extensible conductive coating to the thermoformable film and for a formed conductive layer after three - dimensional forming of the emi gasket . the test results generally show the surface resistivity increases after the conductive layer has been three - dimensionally formed . the test results also generally show , with the exception of ag particle ink , that the shielding effectiveness ( se ) remains relatively constant before and after being three - dimensionally formed . there are a number of ways to make a form in place gasket . for example , as illustrated in fig6 is an embodiment of a method 100 for manufacturing an emi shield made of conductive particles and a foamable mixture . in one embodiment , conductive particles 105 , for example , chopped metal fibers or metallized polymer fibers , are added to the components of a foamable mixture . the components of the foamable mixture can be a polyol component 110 and an isocyonate component 115 of a urethane mixture . the polyol component 110 , the isocyonate component 115 , and the conductive particles 105 are mixed in one or more mixing heads 125 to produce a urethane mixture with an integral network of conductive particles 120 . the urethane mixture with the integral network of conductive particles 120 is then processed by available means to produce the desired size and shape of a conductive emi gasket . in one embodiment , the urethane mixture with an integral network of conductive particles 120 , is dispensed through a nozzle 130 directly onto a surface 135 of an electrical enclosure 140 using an xyz positioning system 145 to form the emi gasket in place as the mixture 120 foams and cures . fip emi gaskets may be manufactured of conductive foams , where the conductive elements are introduced into the foam matrix prior to casting by adding organo - metallic compounds to the foam chemical matrix , which are reduced to conductive elements during the foaming process . additionally , various forms of carbon may be added to urethane foam chemical precursors to produce foams with surface resistivities of 100 to 1000 ohms / square . these materials , however , have limited use in emi shielding applications , due to the relatively high resistivity . a new process produces conductive foams which are less than 10 ohms / square by introducing more highly conductive materials into the foam chemical precursors , including silver - plated glass spheres , sintered metal particles which have bulk resistivities below about 10 − 5 ohm - cm ( e . g . cu , al , ni , ag ), and silver - plated copper particles . other conductive materials include the class of non - metallic materials referred to as conductive polymers . this would include such materials as poly - analine . another method of producing conductive foam is to produce the conductive elements in the foaming process by reacting organo - metallic compounds during the foaming process . this is accomplished by introducing reducing agents into one of the two or more chemical precursors of the foam prior to foaming . one example of these compounds is copper acetate , but any metal compound , which is compatible with one of the chemical foam precursors , could be used . examples of chemical foam systems which may be used include the very broad range of urethane foams including polyester and polyether types . chloroprenes , more commonly known as neoprene rubber foams , could also be used . variations , modifications , and other implementations of what is described herein will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention .	7
the composition of this invention preferably includes between about 1 and about 20 mole % of a polyether monomer and preferably from about 5 to about 15 mole %. most preferably , the polyether monomer is used at a final concentration of about 8 to about 12 mole %. the term “ mole %” as used herein will be determined by the molecular weight of the monomer components . the polyether monomer is preferably of the group of molecules referred to as alkoxy ( poly ) alkyleneglycol ( meth ) acrylates . the alkoxy substituents of this group may be selected from the group consisting of methoxy , ethoxy , propoxy , and butoxy . the ( poly ) alkylene glycol component of the molecule may be selected from the group consisting of ( poly ) propylene glycol and ( poly ) ethylene glycol . the ( poly ) alkylene glycol component preferably has a nominal weight average molecular weight ranging from about 200 g / mole to about 2000 g / mole , and ideally from about 800 g / mole to about 1200 g / mole . examples of preferred polyether monomers include methoxy peg methacrylates , peg methacrylates , and ( poly ) propylene glycol methacrylates . such polyether monomers are commercially available , for instance , from polysciences , inc ., ( warrington , pa .). a composition of this invention preferably includes between about 5 to about 75 mole % of a carboxylic acid - containing monomer , such that the effective ratio of ether groups to carboxylic acid groups in the resultant copolymer is between about 1 to 1 and about 10 to 1 . preferred concentrations of the carboxylic acid - containing monomer are between about 30 to about 50 mole %. most preferably , the carboxylic acid - containing monomer is used at a concentration between about 30 to about 40 mole %. these monomers can be obtained commercially , for instance , from sigma - aldrich , inc . ( st . louis , mo .). preferred carboxylic acid - containing monomers are selected from carboxyl substituted ethylene compounds , also known as alkenoic acids . examples of particularly preferred carboxylic acid - containing monomers include acrylic , methacrylic , maleic , crotonic , itaconic , and citraconic acid . most preferred examples of carboxylic acid - containing monomers include acrylic acid and methacrylic acid . a composition of the present invention preferably includes between about 0 . 1 and about 10 mole % of a photoderivatized monomer , more preferably between about 1 and about 7 mole %, and most preferably between about 3 and about 5 mole %. examples of suitable photoderivatized monomers are ethylenically substituted photoactivatable moieties which include n -[ 3 -( 4 - benzoylbenzoamido ) propyl ] methacrylamide (“ bba - apma ”), 4 ( 2 - acryloxyethoxy )- 2 - hydroxybenzophenone , 4 - methacryloxy - 2 - hydroxybenzophenone , 4 - methacryloxy - 2 - hydroxybenzophenone , 9 - vinyl anthracene , and 9 - anthracenylmethyl methacrylate . an example of a preferred photoderivatized monomer is bba - apma . photoreactive species are defined herein , and preferred species are sufficiently stable to be stored under conditions in which they retain such properties . see , e . g ., u . s . pat . no . 5 , 002 , 582 , the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference . latent reactive groups can be chosen that are responsive to various portions of the electromagnetic spectrum , with those responsive to ultraviolet and visible portions of the spectrum ( referred to herein as “ photoreactive ”) being particularly preferred . photoreactive species respond to specific applied external stimuli to undergo active specie generation with resultant covalent bonding to an adjacent chemical structure , e . g ., as provided by the same or a different molecule . photoreactive species are those groups of atoms in a molecule whose covalent bonds remain unchanged under conditions of storage but upon activation by an external energy source , form covalent bonds with other molecules . the photoreactive species generate active species such as free radicals and particularly nitrenes , carbenes , and excited states of ketones upon absorption of electromagnetic energy . photoreactive species can be chosen to be responsive to various portions of the electromagnetic spectrum , and photoreactive species that are responsive to , e . g ., ultraviolet and visible portions of the spectrum , are preferred and can be referred to herein occasionally as “ photochemical group ” or “ photogroup .” the photoreactive species in photoreactive aryl ketones are preferred , such as acetophenone , benzophenone , anthraquinone , anthrone , and anthrone - like heterocycles , i . e ., heterocyclic analogs of anthrone such as those having n , o , or s in the 10 - position , or their substituted , e . g ., ring substituted , derivatives . examples of preferred aryl ketones include heterocyclic derivatives of anthrone , including acridone , xanthone , and thioxanthone , and their ring substituted derivatives . particularly preferred are thioxanthone , and its derivatives , having excitation energies greater than about 360 nm . the functional groups of such ketones are preferred since they are readily capable of undergoing the activation / inactivation / reactivation cycle described herein . benzophenone is a particularly preferred photoreactive moiety , since it is capable of photochemical excitation with the initial formation of an excited singlet state that undergoes intersystem crossing to the triplet state . the excited triplet state can insert into carbon - hydrogen bonds by abstraction of a hydrogen atom ( from a support surface , for example ), thus creating a radical pair . subsequent collapse of the radical pair leads to formation of a new carbon - carbon bond . if a reactive bond ( e . g ., carbon - hydrogen ) is not available for bonding , the ultraviolet light - induced excitation of the benzophenone group is reversible and the molecule returns to ground state energy level upon removal of the energy source . photoactivatible aryl ketones such as benzophenone and acetophenone are of particular importance inasmuch as these groups are subject to multiple reactivation in water and hence provide increased coating efficiency . the azides constitute a preferred class of photoreactive species and include derivatives based on arylazides ( c 6 r 5 n 3 ) such as phenyl azide and particularly 4 - fluoro - 3 - nitrophenyl azide , acyl azides (— co — n 3 ) such as benzoyl azide and p - methylbenzoyl azide , azido formates (— o — co — n 3 ) such as ethyl azidoformate , phenyl azidoformate , sulfonyl azides (— so 2 — n 3 ) such as benzenesulfonyl azide , and phosphoryl azides ( ro ) 2 pon 3 such as diphenyl phosphoryl azide and diethyl phosphoryl azide . diazo compounds constitute another class of photoreactive species and include derivatives of diazoalkanes (— chn 2 ) such as diazomethane and diphenyldiazomethane , diazoketones (— co — chn 2 ) such as diazoacetophenone and 1 - trifluoromethyl - 1 - diazo - 2 - pentanone , diazoacetates (— o — co — chn 2 ) such as t - butyl diazoacetate and phenyl diazoacetate , and beta - keto - alpha - diazoacetates (— co — cn 2 — co — o —) such as t - butyl alpha diazoacetoacetate . other photoreactive species include the diazirines (— chn 2 ) such as 3 - trifluoromethyl - 3 - phenyldiazirine , and ketenes (— ch ═ c ═ o ) such as ketene and diphenylketene . upon activation of the photoreactive species , the coating agents are covalently bound to each other and / or to the material surface by covalent bonds through residues of the photoreactive species . exemplary photoreactive species , and their residues upon activation , are shown as follows . the coating agents of the present invention can be applied to any surface having carbon - hydrogen bonds , with which the photoreactive species can react to immobilize the coating agents to surfaces . examples of suitable surfaces are described in more detail below . a composition of the present invention includes about 0 to about 93 . 9 mole %, preferably from about 30 to about 70 mole %, and most preferably from about 40 to about 60 mole % of a suitable hydrophilic monomer component . suitable hydrophilic monomers provide an optimal combination of such properties as water solubility , biocompatability , and wettability . most preferably , the hydrophilic monomer improves or provides the resultant polymeric complex with improved water solubility , though noting that the carboxylic acid - containing monomer may be hydrophilic as well , and can contribute to this effect . hydrophilic monomers are preferably taken from the group consisting of alkenyl substituted amides . examples of preferred hydrophilic monomers include acrylamide , n - vinylpyrrolidone , methacrylamide , acrylamido propanesulfonic acid ( amps ). acrylamide is an example of a particularly preferred hydrophilic monomer . such monomers are available commercially from a variety of sources , e . g ., sigma - aldrich , inc . ( st . louis , mo .) and polysciences , inc . ( warrington , pa .). the word “ medicament ”, as used herein , will refer to a wide range of biologically active materials or drugs that can be incorporated into a coating composition of the present invention . the substances to be incorporated preferably do not chemically interact with the composition during fabrication , or during the release process . additives such as inorganic salts , bsa ( bovine serum albumin ), and inert organic compounds can be used to alter the profile of substance release , as known to those skilled in the art . the term “ medicament ”, in turn , will refer to a peptide , protein , carbohydrate , nucleic acid , lipid , polysaccharide or combinations thereof , or synthetic inorganic or organic molecule , that causes a biological effect when administered in vivo to an animal , including but not limited to birds and mammals , including humans . nonlimiting examples are antigens , enzymes , hormones , receptors , peptides , and gene therapy agents . examples of suitable gene therapy agents include a ) therapeutic nucleic acids , including antisense dna and antisense rna , and b ) nucleic acids encoding therapeutic gene products , including plasmid dna and viral fragments , along with associated promoters and excipients . examples of other molecules that can be incorporated include nucleosides , nucleotides , antisense , vitamins , minerals , and steroids . coating compositions prepared according to this process can be used to deliver drugs such as nonsteroidal anti - inflammatory compounds , anesthetics , chemotherapeutic agents , immunotoxins , immunosuppressive agents , steroids , antibiotics , antivirals , antifungals , and steroidal antiinflammatories , anticoagulants . for example , hydrophobic drugs such as lidocaine or tetracaine can be included in the coating and are released over several hours . classes of medicaments which can be incorporated into coatings of this invention include , but are not limited to , anti - aids substances , anti - cancer substances , antibiotics , anti - viral substances , enzyme inhibitors , neurotoxins , opioids , hypnotics , antihistamines , immunosuppresents ( e . g ., cyclosporin ), tranquilizers , anti - convulsants , muscle relaxants and anti - parkinson substances , anti - spasmodics and muscle contractants , miotics and anti - cholinergics , immunosuppressants ( e . g . cyclosporine ) anti - glaucoma solutes , anti - parasite and / or anti - protozoal solutes , anti - hypertensives , analgesics , anti - pyretics and anti - inflammatory agents ( such as nsaid &# 39 ; s ), local anesthetics , ophthalmics , prostaglandins , anti - depressants , anti - psychotic substances , anti - emetics , imaging agents , specific targeting agents , neurotransmitters , proteins and cell response modifiers . a more complete listing of classes of medicaments may be found in the pharmazeutische wirkstoffe , ed . a . von kleemann and j . engel , georg thieme verlag , stuttgart / new york , 1987 , incorporated herein by reference . antibiotics are art recognized and are substances which inhibit the growth of or kill microorganisms . antibiotics can be produced synthetically or by microorganisms . examples of antibiotics include penicillin , tetracycline , chloramphenicol , minocycline , doxycycline , vancomycin , bacitracin , kanamycin , neomycin , gentamycin , erythromycin and cephalosporins . examples of cephalosporins include cephalothin , cephapirin , cefazolin , cephalexin , cephradine , cefadroxil , cefamandole , cefoxitin , cefaclor , cefuroxime , cefonicid , ceforanide , cefotaxime , moxalactam , ceftizoxime , ceftriaxone , and cefoperazone . antiseptics are recognized as substances that prevent or arrest the growth or action of microorganisms , generally in a nonspecific fashion , e . g ., either by inhibiting their activity or destroying them . examples of antiseptics include silver sulfadiazine , chlorhexidine , glutaraldehyde , peracetic acid , sodium hypochlorite , phenols , phenolic compounds , iodophor compounds , quaternary ammonium compounds , and chlorine compounds . anti - viral agents are substances capable of destroying or suppressing the replication of viruses . examples of anti - viral agents include α - methyl - p - adamantane methylamine ), hydroxyethoxymethylguanine , adamantanamine , 5 - iodo - 2 ′- deoxyuridine , trifluorothymidine , interferon , and adenine arabinoside . enzyme inhibitors are substances which inhibit an enzymatic reaction . examples of enzyme inhibitors include edrophonium chloride , n - methylphysostigmine , neostigmine bromide , physostigmine sulfate , tacrine hcl , tacrine , 1 - hydroxy maleate , iodotubercidin , p - bromotetramisole , 10 -( a - diethylaminopropionyl )- phenothiazine hydrochloride , calmidazolium chloride , hemicholinium - 3 , 3 , 5 - dinitrocatechol , diacylglycerol kinase inhibitor i , diacylglycerol kinase inhibitor ii , 3 - phenylpropargylaminie , n - monomethyl - l - arginine acetate , carbidopa , 3 - hydroxybenzylhydrazine hcl , hydralazine hcl , clorgyline hcl , deprenyl hcl , l (−), deprenyl hcl , d (+), hydroxylamine hcl , iproniazid phosphate , 6 - meo - tetrahydro - 9h - pyrido - indole , nialamide , pargyline hcl , quinacrine hcl , semicarbazide hcl , tranylcypromine hcl , n , n - diethylaminoethyl - 2 , 2 - diphenylvalerate hydrochloride , 3 - isobutyl - 1 - methylxanthne , papaverine hcl , indomethacind , 2 - cyclooctyl - 2 - hydroxyethylamine hydrochloride , 2 , 3 - dichloro - a - methylbenzylamine ( dcmb ), 8 , 9 - dichloro - 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 - tetrahydro - 1h - 2 - benzazepine hydrochloride , p - aminoglutethimide , p - aminoglutethimide tartrate , r (+), p - aminoglutethimide tartrate , s (−), 3 - iodotyrosine , alpha - methyltyrosine , l (−), alpha - methyltyrosine , d l (−), cetazolamide , dichlorphenamide , 6 - hydroxy - 2 - benzothiazolesulfonamide , and allopurinol . anti - pyretics are substances capable of relieving or reducing fever . anti - inflammatory agents are substances capable of counteracting or suppressing inflammation . examples of such agents include aspirin ( salicylic acid ), indomethacin , sodium indomethacin trihydrate , salicylamide , naproxen , colchicine , fenoprofen , sulindac , diflunisal , diclofenac , indoprofen and sodium salicylamide . local anesthetics are substances which have an anesthetic effect in a localized region . examples of such anesthetics include procaine , lidocaine , tetracaine and dibucaine . imaging agents are agents capable of imaging a desired site , e . g ., tumor , in vivo . examples of imaging agents include substances having a label which is detectable in vivo , e . g ., antibodies attached to fluorescent labels . the term antibody includes whole antibodies or fragments thereof . cell response modifiers are chemotactic factors such as platelet - derived growth factor ( pdgf ). other chemotactic factors include neutrophil - activating protein , monocyte chemoattractant protein , macrophage - inflammatory protein , sis ( small inducible secreted ), platelet factor , platelet basic protein , melanoma growth stimulating activity , epidermal growth factor , transforming growth factor ( alpha ), fibroblast growth factor , platelet - derived endothelial cell growth factor , insulin - like growth factor , nerve growth factor and bone growth / cartilage - inducing factor ( alpha and beta ). other cell response modifiers are the interleukins , interleukin inhibitors or interleukin receptors , including interleukin 1 through interleukin 10 ; interferons , including alpha , beta and gamma ; hematopoietic factors , including erythropoietin , granulocyte colony stimulating factor , macrophage colony stimulating factor and granulocyte - macrophage colony stimulating factor ; tumor necrosis factors , including alpha and beta ; transforming growth factors ( beta ), including beta - 1 , beta - 2 , beta - 3 , inhibin , activin , and dna that encodes for the production of any of these proteins . the coating composition of the present invention can be used in combination with a variety of devices , including those used on a temporary , transient or permanent basis upon and / or within the body . examples of medical devices suitable for the present invention include , but are not limited to catheters , implantable vascular access ports , blood storage bags , vascular stents , blood tubing , central venous catheters , arterial catheters , vascular grafts , intraaortic balloon pumps , heart valves , cardiovascular sutures , total artificial hearts and ventricular assist pumps , extracorporeal devices such as blood oxygenators , blood filters , hemodialysis units , hemoperfusion units , plasmapheresis units , hybrid artificial organs such as pancreas or liver and artificial lungs , as well as filters adapted for deployment in a blood vessel in order to trap emboli ( also known as “ distal protection devices ”). devices which are particularly suitable include vascular stents such as self - expanding stents and balloon expandable stents . examples of self - expanding stents useful in the present invention are illustrated in u . s . pat . nos . 4 , 655 , 771 and 4 , 954 , 126 issued to wallsten and 5 , 061 , 275 issued to wallsten et al . examples of appropriate balloon - expandable stents are shown in u . s . pat . no . 4 , 733 , 665 issued to palmaz , u . s . pat . no . 4 , 800 , 882 issued to gianturco and u . s . pat . no . 4 , 886 , 062 issued to wiktor . similarly , urinary implants such as drainage catheters are also particularly appropriate for the invention . the surfaces of the medical devices may be formed from polymeric , metallic and / or ceramic materials . suitable polymeric materials include , without limitation , polyurethane and its copolymers , silicone and its copolymers , ethylene vinyl - acetate , thermoplastic elastomers , polyvinyl chloride , polyolefins , cellulosics , polyamides , polyesters , polysulfones , polytetrafluorethylenes , polycarbonates , acrylonitrile butadiene styrene copolymers , acrylics , polylactic acid , polyglycolic acid , polycaprolactone , polylactic acid - polyethylene oxide copolymers , cellulose , collagens , and chitins . metallic materials include metals and alloys based on titanium ( such as nitinol , nickel titanium alloys , thermo - memory alloy materials ), stainless steel , tantalum , nickel - chrome , or cobalt - chromium ( such those available under the tradenames elgiloy ™ and phynox ™). metallic materials also include clad composite filaments , such as those disclosed in wo 94 / 16646 . examples of ceramic materials include ceramics of alumina and glass - ceramics such as those available under the tradename macor ™. the substrates that can be coated with a composition of the present invention include materials that are substantially insoluble in body fluids and that are generally designed and constructed to be placed in or onto the body or to contact fluid of the body . the substrates preferably have the physical properties such as strength , elasticity , permeability and flexibility required to function for the intended purpose ; can be purified , fabricated and sterilized easily ; will substantially maintain their physical properties and function during the time that they remain implanted in or in contact with the body . examples of such substrates include : metals such as titanium / titanium alloys , tini ( shape memory / super elastic ), aluminum oxide , platinum / platinum alloys , stainless steels , mp35n , elgiloy , haynes 25 , stellite , pyrolytic carbon , silver or glassy carbon ; polymers such as polyurethanes , polycarbonates , silicone elastomers , polyolefins including polyethylenes or polypropylenes , polyvinyl chlorides , polyethers , polyesters , nylons , polyvinyl pyrrolidones , polyacrylates and polymethacrylates such as polymethylmethacrylate (“ pmma ”), n - butyl cyanoacrylate , polyvinyl alcohols , polyisoprenes , rubber , cellulosics , polyvinylidene fluoride (“ pvdf ”), polytetrafluoroethylene , ethylene tetrafluoroethylene copolymer (“ etfe ”), acrylonitrile butadiene ethylene , polyamide , polyimide , styrene acrylonitrile , and the like ; minerals or ceramics such as hydroxyapatite ; human or animal protein or tissue such as bone , skin , teeth , collagen , laminin , elastin or fibrin ; organic materials such as wood , cellulose , or compressed carbon ; and other materials such as glass , or the like . substrates made using these materials can be coated or remain uncoated , and derivatized or remain underivatized . medical devices upon or into which the composition can be coated include , but are not limited to , surgical implants , prostheses , and any artificial part or device which replaces or augments a part of a living body or comes into contact with bodily fluids , particularly blood . the substrates can be in any shape or form including tubular , sheet , rod and articles of proper shape . various medical devices and equipment usable in accordance with the invention are known in the art . examples of devices include catheters , suture material , tubing , and fiber membranes . examples of catheters include central venous catheters , thoracic drain catheters , angioplasty balloon catheters . examples of tubing include tubing used in extracorporeal circuitry , such as whole blood oxygenators . examples of membranes include polycarbonate membranes , haemodialysis membranes , membranes used in diagnostic or biosensor devices . also included are devices used in diagnosis , as well as polyester yarn suture material such as polyethylene ribbon , and polypropylene hollow fiber membranes . further illustrations of medical devices include the following : autotransfusion devices , blood filters , blood pumps , blood temperature monitors , bone growth stimulators , breathing circuit connectors , bulldog clamps , cannulae , grafts , implantible pumps , impotence and incontinence implants , intra - ocular lenses , leads , lead adapters , lead connectors , nasal buttons , orbital implants , cardiac insulation pads , cardiac jackets , clips , covers , dialators , dialyzers , disposable temperature probes , domes , drainage products , drapes , ear wicks , electrodes , embolic devices , esophageal stethoscopes , fracture fixation devices , gloves , guide wires , hemofiltration devices , hubs , intra - arterial blood gas sensors , intracardiac suction devices , intrauterine pressure devices , nasal spetal splints , nasal tampons , needles , ophthalmic devices , pap brushes , periodontal fiber adhesives , pessary , retention cuffs , sheeting , staples , stomach ports , surgical instruments , transducer protectors , ureteral stents , vaginal contraceptives , valves , vessel loops , water and saline bubbles , acetabular cups , annuloplasty ring , aortic / coronary locators , artificial pancreas , batteries , bone cement , breast implants , cardiac materials , such as fabrics , felts , mesh , patches , cement spacers , cochlear implant , defibrillators , generators , orthopedic implants , pacemakers , patellar buttons , penile implant , pledgets , plugs , ports , prosthetic heart valves , sheeting , shunts , umbilical tape , valved conduits , and vascular access devices . generally , a solution of the copolymer is prepared at a concentration of about 1 % to a concentration of about 10 % in water or an aqueous buffer solution . depending on the surface being coated , an organic solvent such as isopropyl alcohol (“ ipa ”) can be included in the solution at concentrations varying from about 1 to about 40 %. the medical device or surface to be coated can be dipped into the copolymer solution , or , alternatively , the copolymer solution can be applied to the surface of the device by spraying or the like . at this point , the device can be air - dried to evaporate the solvent or can proceed to the illumination step without drying . the devices can be rotated and illuminated with uv light for 5 - 10 minutes to insure an even coat of the coating . this process can be repeated multiple times to attain the desired coating thickness . coating thicknesses can be evaluated using scanning electron microscopy ( sem ) in both the dry and hydrated forms . the difference in thickness between the dry and the hydrated condition is not generally significant . the thickness of the coating ranges from about 0 . 5 microns to about 20 microns and preferably from about 2 microns to about 10 microns . if a significant amount of surface area is to be coated , it may be preferable to place the device in a rotating fixture to facilitate the coverage of the device &# 39 ; s surface . for example , to coat the entire surface of a vascular stent , the ends of the device are fastened to a rotating fixture by resilient retainers , such as alligator clips . the stent is rotated in a substantially horizontal plane around its axis . the spray nozzle of the airbrush is typically placed 2 - 4 inches from the device . the thickness of the coating can be adjusted by the speed of rotation and the flow rate of the spray nozzle . medicament is typically incorporated into the matrix after the matrix itself has been coated onto a medical device . generally a solution of medicament or medicaments is prepared and the matrix - coated device is soaked in the solution . medicament is absorbed into the matrix from the solution . various solvents can be used to form the medicament solution as the amount of medicament absorbed by the matrix can be controlled by the solvent solution . likewise , the ph and / or the ionic strength of the medicament solution can be adjusted to control the degree of medicament absorption by the matrix . after soaking in medicament solution for a period of time , the medical device is removed and air dried . a coating of the present invention is preferably sufficiently durable and tenacious to permit the coating to remain on the device surface , in vivo , for a period of time sufficient for its intended use , including the delivery of medicaments . the durability and / or tenacity of various coatings , on various surfaces , can be assessed using conventional techniques . applicants , for instance , have constructed a device that includes the use of an adjustable o - ring connected to a high - end torque screw - driver . using this device it is possible to place a constant and replicable force on a coated medical device , e . g ., a catheter . the coated medical device to be tested is inserted into the o - ring and the torque applied to a desired level . the coated device is pulled through the device a predetermined number of times . the coated device is then removed from the o - ring and the device evaluated to determine the amount of matrix remaining on the surface . the matrix remaining on the surface can be detected either directly , e . g ., by staining , and / or indirectly , e . g ., using a drug loading and release assay . after 5 cycles through the device described above , a medical device coated with a formulation of the present invention , preferably retains the ability to absorb and release at least 75 % of its initial capacity . other suitable biomaterials include those substances that do not possess abstractable hydrogens to which the photogroups can form covalent bonds . such biomaterials can be used in a variety of ways . for instance , biomaterials can be made suitable for coating via photochemistry by applying a suitable primer coating which bonds to the biomaterial surface and provides a suitable substrate for binding by the photogroups . for instance , metals and ceramics having oxide groups on their surfaces can be made suitable for coupling via photochemistry by adding a primer coating that binds to the oxide groups and provides abstractable hydrogens . such metals include , but are not limited to , titanium , stainless steel , and cobalt chromium , while such ceramics can include , but are not limited to , silicon nitride , silicon carbide , zirconia , and alumina , as well as glass , silica , and sapphire . one suitable class of primers for metals and ceramics are organosilane reagents , which bond to the oxide surface and provide hydrocarbon groups ( brzoska , j . b ., et . al ., langmuir 10 : 4367 - 4373 , 1994 ). this reference teaches that — sih groups are suitable alternatives for bonding of photogroups . similarly , various tie layers can be applied to various metals , glass , and ceramics , which can in turn serve as sources of abstractable hydrogens for photochemical coupling to the surface . various polymeric materials such as nylon , polystyrene , polyurethane , polyethylene terepthalate , and various monomeric analogs used to prepare such polymers could be used for such tie layers . see , for instance , u . s . pat . nos . 5 , 443 , 455 ; 5 , 749 , 837 ; 5 , 769 , 796 ; 5 , 997 , 517 . the present invention further includes the optional use of additional , e . g ., “ clad ”, layers covering and / or between layers of the composition in either a continuous or discontinuous fashion . for instance , one or more outer layers of one or more other materials , e . g ., a hydrophilic or protective outer coating , can be photoimmobilized or otherwise bound , absorbed or attached on or to a coating prepared as described herein . if desired , for instance , such an additional coating can be applied on top of a medicament absorbing layer , either before and / or after medicament has been absorbed into the matrix . it is preferable to add the additional layer before medicament has been absorbed . for instance , a solution of the same or of a different copolymer can be prepared and the coated device dipped , sprayed or otherwise contacted with the solution and illuminated as described previously . the coated device can then be contacted with , e . g ., soaked in , the medicament solution as described previously . medicament will pass through the top coat and be absorbed by the underlying matrix . when placed in the body , the medicament will be released as described herein . using such a method , a coating with enhanced lubricity , hemocompatibility , or other desired property can be incorporated into the medical device surface , thus forming a device coating that provides multiple desired properties . the invention will be further described with reference to the following non - limiting examples . 4 - benzoylbenzoic acid ( bba ), 1 . 0 kg ( 4 . 42 moles ), was added to a dry 5 liter morton flask equipped with reflux condenser and overhead stirrer , followed by the addition of 645 ml ( 8 . 84 moles ) of thionyl chloride and 725 ml of toluene . dimethylformamide , 3 . 5 ml , was then added and the mixture was heated at reflux for 4 hours . after cooling , the solvents were removed under reduced pressure and the residual thionyl chloride was removed by three evaporations using 3 × 500 ml of toluene . the product was recrystallized from 1 : 4 toluene : hexane to give 988 g ( 91 % yield ) after drying in a vacuum oven . product melting point was 92 - 94 ° c . nuclear magnetic resonance (“ nmr ”) analysis at 80 mhz ( 1 h nmr ( cdcl 3 )) was consistent with the desired product : aromatic protons 7 . 20 - 8 . 25 ( m , 9h ). all chemical shift values are in ppm downfield from a tetramethylsilane internal standard . the final compound ( compound i shown below ) was stored for use in the preparation of a monomer used in the synthesis of photoactivatable polymers as described , for instance , in example 3 . a solution of 1 , 3 - diaminopropane , 1910 g ( 25 . 77 moles ), in 1000 ml of ch 2 cl 2 was added to a 12 liter morton flask and cooled on an ice bath . a solution of t - butyl phenyl carbonate , 1000 g ( 5 . 15 moles ), in 250 ml of ch 2 cl 2 was then added dropwise at a rate which kept the reaction temperature below 15 ° c . following the addition , the mixture was warmed to room temperature and stirred 2 hours . the reaction mixture was diluted with 900 ml of ch 2 cl 2 and 500 g of ice , followed by the slow addition of 2500 ml of 2 . 2 n naoh . after testing to insure the solution was basic , the product was transferred to a separatory funnel and the organic layer was removed and set aside as extract # 1 . the aqueous was then extracted with 3 × 1250 ml of ch 2 cl 2 , keeping each extraction as a separate fraction . the four organic extracts were then washed successively with a single 1250 ml portion of 0 . 6 n naoh beginning with fraction # 1 and proceeding through fraction # 4 . this wash procedure was repeated a second time with a fresh 1250 ml portion of 0 . 6 n naoh . the organic extracts were then combined and dried over na 2 so 4 . filtration and evaporation of solvent to a constant weight gave 825 g of n - mono - t - boc - 1 , 3 - diaminopropane which was used without further purification . a solution of methacrylic anhydride , 806 g ( 5 . 23 moles ), in 1020 ml of chcl 3 was placed in a 12 liter morton flask equipped with overhead stirrer and cooled on an ice bath . phenothiazine , 60 mg , was added as an inhibitor , followed by the dropwise addition of n - mono - t - boc - 1 , 3 - diaminopropane , 825 g ( 4 . 73 moles ), in 825 ml of chcl 3 . the rate of addition was controlled to keep the reaction temperature below 10 ° c . at all times . after the addition was complete , the ice bath was removed and the mixture was left to stir overnight . the product was diluted with 2400 ml of water and transferred to a separatory funnel . after thorough mixing , the aqueous layer was removed and the organic layer was washed with 2400 ml of 2 n naoh , insuring that the aqueous layer was basic . the organic layer was then dried over na 2 so 4 and filtered to remove drying agent . a portion of the chcl 3 solvent was removed under reduced pressure until the combined weight of the product and solvent was approximately 3000 g . the desired product was then precipitated by slow addition of 11 . 0 liters of hexane to the stirred chcl 3 solution , followed by overnight storage at 4 ° c . the product was isolated by filtration and the solid was rinsed twice with a solvent combination of 900 ml of hexane and 150 ml of chcl 3 . thorough drying of the solid gave 900 g of n -[ n ′-( t - butyloxycarbonyl )- 3 - aminopropyl ]- methacrylamide , m . p . 85 . 8 ° c . by differential scanning calorimetry (“ dsc ”). analysis on an nmr spectrometer was consistent with the desired product : 1 h nmr ( cdcl 3 ) amide nh &# 39 ; s 6 . 30 - 6 . 80 , 4 . 55 - 5 . 10 ( m , 2h ), vinyl protons 5 . 65 , 5 . 20 ( m , 2h ), methylenes adjacent to n 2 . 90 - 3 . 45 ( m , 4h ), methyl 1 . 95 ( m , 3h ), remaining methylene 1 . 50 - 1 . 90 ( m , 2h ), and t - butyl 1 . 40 ( s , 9h ). a 3 - neck , 2 liter round bottom flask was equipped with an overhead stirrer and gas sparge tube . methanol , 700 ml , was added to the flask and cooled on an ice bath . while stirring , hcl gas was bubbled into the solvent at a rate of approximately 5 liters / minute for a total of 40 minutes . the molarity of the final hcl / meoh solution was determined to be 8 . 5 m by titration with 1 n naoh using phenolphthalein as an indicator . the n -[ n ′-( t - butyloxycarbonyl )- 3 - aminopropyl ] methacrylamide , 900 g ( 3 . 71 moles ), was added to a 5 liter morton flask equipped with an overhead stirrer and gas outlet adapter , followed by the addition of 1150 ml of methanol solvent . some solids remained in the flask with this solvent volume . phenothiazine , 30 mg , was added as an inhibitor , followed by the addition of 655 ml ( 5 . 57 moles ) of the 8 . 5 m hcl / meoh solution . the solids slowly dissolved with the evolution of gas but the reaction was not exothermic . the mixture was stirred overnight at room temperature to insure complete reaction . any solids were then removed by filtration and an additional 30 mg of phenothiazine were added . the solvent was then stripped under reduced pressure and the resulting solid residue was azeotroped with 3 × 1000 ml of isopropanol with evaporation under reduced pressure . finally , the product was dissolved in 2000 ml of refluxing isopropanol and 4000 ml of ethyl acetate were added slowly with stirring . the mixture was allowed to cool slowly and was stored at 4 ° c . overnight . compound ii was isolated by filtration and was dried to constant weight , giving a yield of 630 g with a melting point of 124 . 7 ° c . by dsc . analysis on an nmr spectrometer was consistent with the desired product : 1 h nmr ( d 2 o ) vinyl protons 5 . 60 , 5 . 30 ( m , 2h ), methylene adjacent to amide n 3 . 30 ( t , 2h ), methylene adjacent to amine n 2 . 95 ( t , 2h ), methyl 1 . 90 ( m , 3h ), and remaining methylene 1 . 65 - 2 . 10 ( m , 2h ). the final compound ( compound ii shown below ) was stored for use in the preparation of a monomer used in the synthesis of photoactivatable polymers as described , for instance , in example 3 . compound ii 120 g ( 0 . 672 moles ), prepared according to the general method described in example 2 , was added to a dry 2 liter , three - neck round bottom flask equipped with an overhead stirrer . phenothiazine , 23 - 25 mg , was added as an inhibitor , followed by 800 ml of chloroform . the suspension was cooled below 10 ° c . on an ice bath and 172 . 5 g ( 0 . 705 moles ) of compound i , prepared according to the general method described in example 1 , were added as a solid . triethylamine , 207 ml ( 1 . 485 moles ), in 50 ml of chloroform was then added dropwise over a 1 - 1 . 5 hour time period . the ice bath was removed and stirring at ambient temperature was continued for 2 . 5 hours . the product was then washed with 600 ml of 0 . 3 n hcl and 2 × 300 ml of 0 . 07 n hcl . after drying over sodium sulfate , the chloroform was removed under reduced pressure and the product was recrystallized twice from 4 : 1 toluene : chloroform using 23 - 25 mg of phenothiazine in each recrystallization to prevent polymerization . typical yields of compound iii were 90 % with a melting point of 147 - 151 ° c . analysis on an nmr spectrometer was consistent with the desired product : 1 h nmr ( cdcl 3 ) aromatic protons 7 . 20 - 7 . 95 ( m , 9h ), amide nh 6 . 55 ( broad t , 1h ), vinyl protons 5 . 65 , 5 . 25 ( m , 2h ), methylenes adjacent to amide n &# 39 ; s 3 . 20 - 3 . 60 ( m , 4h ), methyl 1 . 95 ( s , 3h ), and remaining methylene 1 . 50 - 2 . 00 ( m , 2h ). the final compound ( compound iii shown below ) was stored for use in the synthesis of photoactivatable polymers as described in examples 4 and 5 . acrylamide , 39 . 3 g ( 0 . 55 mole ), and bba - apma ( compound iii ), 15 . 5 g ( 0 . 04 mole ), were dissolved in dimethylsulfoxide (“ dmso ”), followed by methoxypolyethyleneglycol 1000 monomethacrylate ( methoxy peg 1000 ma ), 110 . 8 g ( 0 . 11 mole ), methacrylic acid , 33 . 8 ml ( 0 . 4 mole ), 2 , 2 ′- azobisisobutyronitrile (“ aibn ”), 2 . 3 g ( 0 . 01 mole ), and n , n , n ′, n ′,- tetramethylethylenediamine (“ temed ”), 2 . 2 ml ( 0 . 02 mole ). the solution was deoxygenated with a helium sparge for 60 minutes at 60 ° c ., then sealed under argon and heated overnight at 60 ° c . the resulting product was dialyzed against deionized water using 12 , 000 - 14 , 000 molecular weight cutoff tubing for 66 to 96 hours , then filtered through whatman # 1 filter paper before being lyophilized to give 190 g of polymer . the resultant polymer was identified as methacrylic acid - co - methoxy peg1000 - ma - co - bba - apma having the following general structure ( compound iv ). a series of polymers of the general formula of compound iv were synthesized as generally described in example 4 . the mole percent of acrylamide and methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate were varied while the mole percent of the bba - apma ( compound iii ) was constant at four mole percent . the ratios of the other groups to carbonyl groups in the various polymers were calculated assuming each mole of the methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate contained 23 ether groups . a list of the various polymers prepared and the composition of the various polymers are listed below . the following compounds were synthesized in a manner analogous to that described above with respect to compound iv . 2 . 4 % bba - apma , 10 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 86 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 8 in table below ) 3 . 4 % bba - apma , 2 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 66 % acrylamide , 28 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 1 in table below ) 4 . 4 % bba - apma , 2 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 42 % acrylamide , 52 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 2 in table below ) 5 . 4 % bba - apma , 26 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 42 % acrylamide , 28 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 3 in table below ) 6 . 4 % bba - apma , 2 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 54 % acrylamide , 40 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 4 in table below ) 7 . 4 % bba - apma , 14 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 54 % acrylamide , 28 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 5 in table below ) 8 . 4 % bba - apma , 14 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 42 % acrylamide , 40 % methacrylic acid ( polymer # 6 in table below ) 9 . 4 % bba - apma , 2 % methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate , 42 % acrylamide , 52 % methacrylic acid 10 . 4 % bba - apma , 60 % acrylamide , 36 % methacrylic acid 11 . 4 % bba - apma , 50 % acrylamide , 46 % methacrylic acid 12 . 4 % bba - apma , 40 % acrylamide , 56 % methacrylic acid the mole % bba - apma was constant at 4 mole %. the ratios of ether groups to carboxyl groups in the various polymers were calculated assuming each mole of methoxy peg1000 monomethacrylate contained 100 / 44 = 23 ether groups . the composition of the various polymers were : ** polymers # 3 , # 5 , and # 6 were poorly soluble in water and difficult to coat . release of chlorhexidine diacetate and hexachlorophene on stainless steel rods tested against staphylococcus epidermidis stainless steel ( ss , 304 ) rods ( 0 . 75 in ., 2 cm ) were initially pretreated with parylene c as follows : first , the rods were cleaned with enprep 160se detergent ( ethone - omi inc ., bridgeview , ill .) followed by silylation with γ - methacryoxypropyltrimethoxysilane ( sigma chemical co ., st . louis , mo .). five grams of parylene c ( specialty coating systems , indianapolis , ind .) was loaded into the vaporizer of a labcoter 1 , parylene deposition unit , model pds 2010 ( specialty coating systems , indianapolis , ind .) and the parylene was deposited onto the rods in order to achieve a uniform and durable coating of the desired thickness . after precoating , the rods were wiped clean with a cloth soaked in isopropyl alcohol ( ipa ). a solution of compound iv was prepared at a concentration of 50 mg / ml in 20 % ipa . the rods were dipped at 1 . 0 cm ( 0 . 4 in . )/ sec into and 0 . 5 cm ( 0 . 2 in . )/ sec out of solution ( with no dwell period for the first application and a 30 sec dwell period for the second application ). after air - drying for approximately 20 minutes , the coated rods were suspended midway between opposed elc 4000 lamps ( 40 cm ( 15 . 7 in ) apart ) containing 400 watt mercury vapor bulbs which put out 1 . 5 mw / sq . cm from 330 - 340 nm at the point of illumination . the rods were rotated and illuminated for five minutes to insure an even coat of the coating . two coats were applied . two separate solutions of chlorhexidine and hexachlorophene were prepared . chlorhexidine diacetate (“ cda ”) ( 100 mg / ml ) was dissolved in 70 % ethanol ( etoh ) and hexachlorophene (“ hcp ”) was also dissolved in 70 % etoh by heating . the ss rods coated with compound iv were incubated with either the cha or hcp solution for 30 minutes at room temperature . the parts were air - dried overnight . the longevity of the antiseptic release was evaluated by transferring the rods from one agar surface to a fresh agar surface for zone of inhibition analysis . basically , the 2 cm ( 0 . 8 in .) ss rods were laid parallel on to a mueller - hinton agar surface that was incubated with approximately a 1 × 10 6 cfu / ml of staphylococcus epidermidis ( atcc 35984 ). the agar plates containing the parts were incubated overnight at 37 ° c . the zones of inhibition or areas of no bacterial growth were measured across the diameter of the part . samples were transferred daily to new agar plates with fresh lawns of s . epidermidis until no zones of inhibition were present . the cda containing rods produced zones starting at approximately 34 mm and leveling off to 15 - 18 mm by day 4 and continued at that size through day 14 while the hcp containing parts produced zones starting at approximately 33 mm and leveling off to 30 mm by day 3 and continued at that size through day 14 ( end of experiment ). release of chlorhexidine digluconate (“ chg ”) on stainless steel rods tested against staphylococcus epidermidis , staphylococcus aureus , escherichia coli , and candida albicans stainless steel ( ss , 304 ) rods ( 0 . 75 in ., 2 cm ) were pretreated and a solution of compound iv was prepared as described in example 6 . a portion of the rods ( 0 . 6 in ., 1 . 6 cm ) was dip - coated into the coating solution by dipping into the solution at 0 . 5 cm ( 0 . 2 in . )/ sec , swelling for 30 seconds and withdrawing at a rate of 0 . 2 cm ( 0 . 08 in . )/ sec for the first 1 . 2 cm ( 0 . 5 in .) of the rod , the reduced to 0 . 05 cm ( 0 . 02 in .) for the last 0 . 4 cm ( 0 . 16 in .) of the rod . the rods were air - dried for 15 minutes and uv illuminated for 5 minutes with rotation as described in example 6 . two coats were applied . chlorhexidine digluconate ( chg ) ( 100 mg / ml ) was diluted further in deionized ( di ) water . compound iv - coated parylene treated and uncoated rods were sterilized for 20 minutes in 70 % ipa and air - dried . all of the rods were soaked for one hour at room temperature in the chg solution . the parts were then air - dried overnight . the chg - incorporated parts as well as uncoated and compound - iv coated without chg were tested in the zone of inhibition assay agent s . epidermidis ( atcc 35984 ), s . aureus ( atcc 25923 ) e . coli ( atcc 25922 ) and c . albicans ( atcc 10231 ) as described in example 6 . the following results were obtained . s . epidermidis : the controls for both the uncoated and compound iv - coated did not produce zones . the uncoated parts with chg produced zones starting at 22 mm on day 1 and dropped off to no zones by day 4 . the parylene - only coated samples with drug gave zones starting at 25 mm and dropped off to zero zones by day 5 . the compound iv - coated samples with chg incorporated had zones starting at 25 mm , which leveled off to 15 - 20 mm by day 2 through day 14 , and decreasing to 5 mm by day 21 . e . coli : the controls with no drug for both uncoated and compound iv - coated did not produce zones . the uncoated parts with chg produced zones starting at 15 mm and dropped off with no zones by 4 days . the parylene - only sample with drug gave zones starting at 22 mm and dropped off to no zones by 5 days . the compound iv - coated samples with drug had zones starting at 20 mm and gradually decreased to no zones by day 21 . c . albicans : the controls with no drug for both uncoated and compound iv - coated produced no zones . the uncoated parts with chg produced zones starting at 17 mm for day one only . the parylene - only samples with drug gave zones starting at 19 mm and lasted only 2 days . the compound iv - coated samples with drug gave zones that started at 28 mm and gradually decreased to zero zones by day 18 . s . aureus : the controls with no drug for both uncoated and compound iv - coated did not produce zones . the uncoated parts with chg produced zones starting at 23 and dropped off to no zones by day 4 . the parylene - only samples with drug gave zones starting at 25 mm and dropped off to no zones by day 3 . the compound iv - coated samples with drug had zones starting at 23 mm and gradually decreased to 13 mm through day 12 . on day 13 the study was discontinued due to contamination . release of chlorhexidine digluconate ( chg ) on titanium rods tested against s . epidermidis , s . aureus , e . coli , and c . albicans titanium ( 90 ti / 6 al / 4v ) rods ( 0 . 75 in ., 2 cm ) were pretreated with parylene and a compound iv solution was prepared as described in example 6 . the rods were dip coated as described in example 7 , except that the entire rod was coated . the rods were air - dried and uv cured as described in example 6 . two coats were applied . the uncoated , parylene treated , and compound iv - coated rods were sterilized in 70 % ipa for 20 minutes and air - dried . the samples were then incorporated with chg at 100 mg / ml in di water for one hour at room temperature with agitation . the rods were rinsed by dipping three times into tubes containing di water and air - dried overnight . the quantity of chg eluted from the rods was also determined . the individual rods were placed into test tubes containing 2 ml of phosphate buffer saline (“ pbs ”) and were incubated at 37 ° c . overnight with agitation . the rods were transferred to fresh pbs daily , and the eluates were diluted into the high pressure liquid chromatography ( hplc ) mobile phase to solubilize the chg . the amount of chg eluted was measured by hplc and was determined to be 12 . 3 μg / rod for uncoated , 10 . 1 μg / rod for parylene - only , and 275 μg / rod for compound iv - coated . also the chg incorporated parts , as well as uncoated and compound iv - coated without chg were tested in the zone of inhibition assay against s . epidermidis ( atcc 35984 ), s . aureus ( atcc 25923 ) e . coli ( atcc 25922 ) and c . albicans ( atcc 10231 ) as described in example 6 . the results were as follows : s . epidermidis : the uncoated and parylene - only gave zone of 15 - 18 mm on day 1 and died off by day 3 . the compound iv - coated rods with drug gave zones starting at 24 mm , leveling at 15 - 19 mm from day 2 - 21 and then gradually decreasing to no zone on day 27 . s . aureus : the uncoated and parylene - only gave zone of 14 - 16 mm on day 1 and dropped off to no zones by day 3 . the compound iv samples with drug gave zones starting at 20 mm and gradually decreasing to 12 mm on day 16 . they were discontinued on day 20 due to contamination . e . coli : uncoated and parylene - only gave zones of 13 - 14 mm on day 1 and dropped off to no zones by day 3 . the compound iv sample with drug gave zones starting at 20 mm and gradually decreased to no zones on day 20 . c . albicans : uncoated and parylene - only gave zone of 7 - 10 mm on day 1 and dropped off to no zone by day 2 . the compound iv samples with drug had zones starting at 19 mm and gradually decreased to no zones on day 21 . release of benzalkonuim chloride (“ bak ”) and chg from pebax ™ rods tested against s . epidermidis and e . coli pebax ™ rods ( 0 . 75 in ., 2 cm ) were wiped clean with an ipa soaked cloth and a compound iv solution was prepared as described in example 6 . the rods were dipped at 3 . 0 cm ( 1 . 2 in . )/ sec into , 30 sec dwell , and a 3 . 0 cm ( 1 . 2 in . )/ sec out of solution . the rods were air - dried for approximately ten minutes and uv illuminated for 3 minutes with rotation as described in example 6 . two coats were applied and a portion of the pebax ™ rods were cut into 1 cm ( 0 . 4 in .) pieces for the zone of inhibition testing . bak and chg were prepared at 100 mg / ml in di water and the samples were incorporated for one hour at room temperature with agitation . the rods were rinsed three times in di water and air - dried overnight . the samples were tested in the zone of inhibition assay against s . epidermidis ( atcc 35984 ) and e . coli ( atcc 25922 ) as described in example 6 except the rods were placed perpendicular into the agar . s . epidermidis results : the compound iv coatings containing bak gave zones starting at 26 mm and gradually decreasing to no zones by day 16 . the chg coated rods gave zones that started at 22 mm and gradually decreased to 12 mm on day 16 when the study was discontinued . e . coli : the bak coated rods gave zones that started at 11 mm but lasted only 2 days . the chg coated rods gave zones that started at 15 mm and gradually decreased to 9 mm on day 16 when the study was discontinued . release of chg form polyurethane ( pellethane ) catheter material tested against s . epidermidis the polyurethane ( pu ) catheter material was wiped clean with ipa and a solution of compound iv for coating was prepared as described in example 6 . the rods were dip coated in the coating solution by dipping into the solution at 1 . 0 cm ( 0 . 4 in . )/ sec , dwelling for 30 seconds , and withdrawing at a rate of 0 . 5 cm ( 0 . 2 in . )/ sec . the rods were air - dried for 15 minutes and uv illuminated for three minutes with rotation as described in example 6 . two coats of the compound iv coating were applied . the compound iv coated rods were wiped with 70 % ipa and dried for one hour . the rods were cut into 2 cm lengths and the chg was incorporated by dipping the rods into a 200 mg / ml solution of chg for one hour at room temperature and then rinsed three times in di water . the samples were air - dried overnight and tested in the zone of inhibition assay against s . epidermidis ( atcc25984 ) as described in example 6 . all of the uncoated samples and coated samples containing no drug produced no zones of inhibition . the compound iv - coated zones with drug started at 28 mm at day zero and gradually decreased to no zones on day 23 . release of alexidine dihydrochloride (“ adc ”) from polyurethane rods tested against s . epidermidis polyurethane rods ( 6 in ., 15 cm ) were wiped clean as described in example 9 and a compound iv solution was prepared as in example 6 . the rods were dip - coated by dipping into the solution at a rate of 2 . 0 cm ( 0 . 8 in . )/ sec , dwelling for 30 seconds and withdrawing at 3 . 0 ( 1 . 2 in . )/ sec . the samples were air - dried for 10 minutes and uv illuminated for two minutes with rotation as described in example 6 . two coats were applied . a solution of alexidine dihydrochloride ( adc ) ( 100 mg / ml ) in 50 % methanol was prepared with heat . the pu rods were cut into 1 cm lengths and incorporated with the alexidine in the adc solution in a warm water bath . the rods were incorporated for one hour , rinsed three times in di water , and air - dried over night . the samples were tested in the zone of inhibition against s . epidermidis ( atcc 35984 ) as described in example 6 . all of the uncoated samples and coated samples containing no drug produced no zones of inhibition . the compound iv - coated zones with alexidine started at 12 mm and leveled off at 6 - 9 mm form day 2 through the duration of the test period of 21 days . release of vancomycin (“ va ”) on coated pu rods tested against s . epidermidis polyurethane rods ( 6 in ., 15 cm ) were wiped clean as described in example 9 and a compound iv solution was prepared as in example 6 . the rods were dip coated in the coating solution by dipping into the solution at 2 . 0 cm ( 0 . 8 in . )/ sec , dwelling for 30 seconds , and withdrawing at 2 . 0 ( 0 . 8 in . )/ sec . the rods were air - dried for 15 minutes and uv illuminated for four minutes with rotation as described in example 6 . two coats were applied . a solution of vancomycin ( va ) was prepared at 50 mg / ml in di water . the rods were incorporated with va in the va solution for one hour at room temperature , rinsed three times in di water , air - dried , and cut into 1 cm pieces . the samples were tested against s . epidermidis ( atcc35984 ) as described in example 6 . all of the uncoated samples and coated samples containing no drug produced no zones of inhibition . the compound iv coated zones with va started at 20 mm and dropped off to no zones by day 6 .	8
the structure of methoxatin with ring numbering may be depicted as the following formula : the present invention relates to hydroxamic acid derivatives at the 7 - position of methoxatin . the preparation and use of these compounds is described in more detail below and in the examples . a general synthetic route for preparing compounds of formula i is set forth above in scheme 1 . the quinone functionality of methoxatin trimethyl ester ( i ) ( which may be prepared according to martin et al ., helv . chim . acta , 76 , 1667 - 73 ( 1993 )) may be protected by reaction with ethylene glycol ( or similarly with propane - 1 , 3 - diol ) and a catalytic amount of an acid such as p - toluenesulfonic acid , benzenesulfonic acid , or camphorsulfonic acid in refluxing benzene or toluene , utilizing a dean - stark trap to remove water produced by the reaction . the resulting ketal - protected compound ( ii ) may then be dissolved in pyridine - water and allowed to stir at about room temperature for several days ( e . g ., 4 - 10 days ). these very mild conditions result in saponification of the methyl ester at the 7 - position with extraordinarily high regioselectivity . coupling of ( iii ) with o - substituted - hydroxylamines ( i . e ., r 3 - t - o — nh 2 ) using reagents such as edac . hcl , dcc or dic in combination with hobt or hoat , or pybop in combination with a tertiary amine base such as triethylamine or diisopropylethylamine affords compound ( iv ). after purification of ( iv ) by chromatography only a single regioisomer is typically observed by 1 h - nmr . the ketal protecting group may then be removed by acid hydrolysis ( e . g ., dilute hcl ) to liberate the quinone functionality . saponification of the remaining two methyl esters may then be accomplished by treatment with a hydroxide base , such as , for example , lioh , naoh , or koh , to provide ( v ). the synthesis outlined in scheme 1 provides a generally applicable strategy for the regiospecific introduction of hydroxamic acid modifications to methoxatin at the 7 - position , leaving the 2 and 9 positions of methoxatin as free carboxylic acids or their base addition salts . in certain embodiments , the compounds of the present invention , e . g ., compounds of formulas i and ii may be capable of forming salts . acceptable base addition salts may be formed with metals or amines , such as alkali and alkaline earth metal hydroxides , or of organic amines examples of metals used as cations are aluminum , calcium , magnesium , potassium , sodium , lithium , and the like . examples of suitable amines include tertiary amines , such as triethylamine , n , n - di ( isopropyl )- ethylamine , n - methylmorpholine , n - methylpiperidine , n - methylpyrrolidine , and the like , and aromatic amines , such as pyridine , 2 , 6 - dimethylpyridine , 2 , 4 , 6 - trimethylpyridine , 4 -( dimethylamino ) pyridine , and the like . in a particular embodiment , a compound of formula ii may form a pyridine salt . in certain embodiments , the compounds of formula i retain the natural co - enzyme activity of methoxatin , indicating that the compound is still recognized as methoxatin by the enzymes for which it is a co - factor . in certain embodiments , the compounds of formula i retain from 1 % to 100 of the activity of native methoxatin using the gdh assay of example 14 . in certain embodiments , the compounds of formula i retain greater than 5 % activity of native methoxatin , 10 % activity of native methoxatin , greater than 15 % activity of native methoxatin , greater than 20 % activity of native methoxatin , greater than 25 % activity of native methoxatin , greater than 30 % activity of native methoxatin , greater than 35 % activity of native methoxatin , or greater than 40 % activity of native methoxatin using the gdh assay of example 14 . in certain embodiments , the compound of formula i retain between about 40 % to about 100 % of the activity of native methoxatin using the gdh assay of example 14 . compounds of formula i may be used to prepare antibodies against pqq which can be used to isolate and or assay for quinoproteins . for example , a compound of formula i may be reacted with an antigenic carrier protein ( e . g ., keyhole limpet hemocyanin ( klh ), serum albumin , bovine thyroglobulin , or soybean trypsin inhibitor ). in certain embodiments , the compound of formula i that may be employed is a compound of formula i with a free thiol group , which may react with a free thiol group on the carrier protein to form a disulfide bond . the resulting compound - carrier protein conjugate may then be used to induce polyclonal antibodies against the compound of formula i in an animal . the immunization of the animals can be by any method known in the art . see , e . g ., harlow and lane , antibodies : a laboratory manual , new york : cold spring harbor press , 1990 . methods for immunizing non - human animals such as mice , rabbits , rats , sheep , goats , pigs , cattle and horses are well known in the art . see , e . g ., harlow and lane , supra . subsequently , antibodies to methoxatin may be isolated from the mammal &# 39 ; s blood . methoxatin antibodies would be useful in biochemical assays that employ methoxatin as an enzyme cofactor . for example , the methoxatin antibodies could be immobilized on a solid support and used to scavenge methoxatin from an assay solution . in certain embodiments , the compound of formula i that may be employed is a compound of formula i with a terminal — n 3 group as r 3 or r 4 . compounds of formula i may also be used to purify methoxatin antibodies and quinoproteins ( e . g ., gdh from a biological source such as aspergillus niger or acinetobactercalcoaceticus ). a wide variety of chemistries may be employed to couple compounds of formula i to solid supports and chromatographic media that can be employed in affinity purification methods to isolate , identify , or assay quinoproteins . for example , a compound of formula i may be reacted with solid cross - linked dextran gel particles . or agarose particles . the resulting ( formula i )- dextran gel or ( formula i )- agarose materials may then be used in column chromatography to identify and purify quinoproteins , such as glucose dehydrogenase . the purified glucose dehydrogenase can be used to assay for glucose , which has applications in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as diabetes . for example , an affinity column may be prepared using a compound of formula i . for example , an azide - containing compound of formula i may be reacted with phosphine - modified solid agarose beads . the resulting agarose - compound conjugate may then be used to purify a quinoprotein or methoxatin antibody . in addition , an affinity purification of methoxatin antibodies or a quinoprotein may be carried out by incubating a compound of formula i containing a cf 3 ( cf 2 ) f ( ch 2 ) g — group at r 3 , where f is an integer from 1 to 11 , g is 0 or an is an integer from 1 to 3 ( e . g ., a cf 3 ( ch 2 ) 7 — group ) with an impure source of methoxatin antibodies or quinoprotein . the resulting mixture may be then adsorbed onto silica gel containing fluorohydrocarbon side chains ( e . g ., cf 3 ( ch 2 ) 7 —) ( e . g ., fluorous spe ( f - spe ) cartridge (“ fluorous solid - phase extraction ), fluorous technologies , inc ., pittsburgh , pa .) and rinsed with water . the methoxatin antibodies or quinoprotein may then be eluted with a solution of methoxatin ( alternatively a compound of formula i could be used ) to elute purified methoxatin antibodies or quinoprotein . a suspension of trimethyl 4 , 5 - dioxo - 4 , 5 - dihydro - 1h - pyrrolo [ 2 , 3 - f ] quinoline - 2 , 7 , 9 - tricarboxylate , 1 ( 1 . 2 g , 3 . 22 mmol ) in benzene ( 200 ml ) was treated with ethylene glycol ( 10 ml ) and p - toluensulfonic acid ( 60 mg , 0 . 32 mmol ). the resulting mixture was heated at reflux under a dean - stark trap and reflux condenser for 14 hours . the orange suspension became a yellow solution . the heat was turned off , the trap was removed , and the condenser was replaced . to the hot solution , a mixture of benzene ( 75 ml ) and dcm ( 75 ml ) was cautiously added . the resulting solution was allowed to cool to room temperature , and then washed with 5 % aqueous nahco 3 ( 100 ml ). the organic layer was separated and washed with water ( 100 ml ). the organic layer was separated , dried over na 2 so 4 , and filtered . evaporation of solvent at reduced pressure gave a yellow solid . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 40 g ), eluting with etoac - dcm - hexane ( 50 : 25 : 25 ) gave purified 2 ( 1 / 02 g , 74 . 4 %) as a yellow solid upon evaporation of solvent . 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 , δ ) 12 . 31 ( s , 1h , nh ), 8 . 77 ( s , 1h , h - 8 ), 7 . 15 ( d , 1h , h - 3 ), 4 . 35 ( m , 2h , och 2 ), 4 . 30 ( m , 2h , och 2 ), 4 . 11 ( s , 1h , co 2 ch 3 ), 4 . 07 ( s , 1h , co 2 ch 3 ), 3 . 93 ( s , 1h , co 2 ch 3 ). a solution of the product from example 1 ( 2 , 1 . 0 g , 2 . 4 mmol ) in a mixture of pyridine ( 75 ml ) and water ( 25 ml ) was stirred in a capped flask at room temperature for 5 days . the reaction mixture was concentrated at reduced pressure to give an oil that begins to crystallize . trituration with etoac ( 40 ml ) gave a slurry of yellow solid , which was collected by filtration . after drying to constant weight , 3 ( 0 . 91 g , 78 . 8 %) was isolated . nmr ( dmso - d 6 , δ ), 13 . 82 ( br , 1h , nh ), 8 . 68 ( d , 2h , 2 , 6 - pyridine - h ), 8 . 58 ( s , 1h , h - 8 ), 8 . 02 ( m , 1h , 4 - pyridine - h ), 7 . 58 ( m , 2h , 3 , 5 - pyridine - h ) 7 . 01 ( d , 1h , h - 3 ), 4 . 25 ( m , 2h , och 2 ), 4 . 14 ( m , 2h , och 2 ), 3 . 93 ( s , 3h , co 2 ch 3 ), 3 . 83 ( s , 3h , co 2 ch 3 ). a mixture of the product from example 2 ( 3 , 95 mg , 0 . 2 mmol ), edac . hcl ( 1 - ethyl - 3 -( 3 - dimethylaminopropyl ) carbodiimide hydrochloride ) ( 104 mg , 0 . 54 mmol ) and hobt ( 1 - hydroxy - benzotriazole ) ( 73 mg , 0 . 54 mmol ) was placed under a n 2 atmosphere . anhydrous dcm ( dichloromethane ) ( 2 . 5 ml ) was added and the resulting mixture was stirred for 2 minutes until a solution was obtained . a solution of 4 - penten - 1 - yl - oxyamine ( 70 μl , 0 . 59 mmol ) in dcm ( 1 ml ) was added and stirring continued at room temperature for 3 hours . the reaction mixture was diluted with dcm ( 30 ml ), washed with 0 . 5m hcl ( 30 ml ), and then washed with water ( 30 ml ). the cloudy organic layer was separated and allowed to stand at room temperature for 15 minutes . the organic layer was decanted from some water droplets , dried over na 2 so 4 , filtered , and evaporated to a yellow solid . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 5 g ), eluting with dcm - meoh ( gradient 99 . 5 : 5 to 98 : 2 ) gave a yellow oil upon evaporation of solvents . trituration with etoac and evaporation of the resulting slurry gave 4 ( 67 mg , 69 %) as a yellow solid after drying in vacuo . ms ( ap −) 484 ( m − 1 ). a solution of the product from example 3 ( 4 , 32 mg , 64 μmol ) in thf ( 6 ml ) was treated with 1n hcl ( 0 . 6 ml ) was kept at 45 - 47 ° c . for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature . tlc ( dcm - meoh 95 : 5 ) shows no 4 ( r f = 0 . 75 ) and one major product ( r f = 0 . 4 ). the solution was concentrated on a rotary evaporator to remove thf . the resulting mixture was partitioned between etoac ( 25 ml ) and saturated aqueous nacl ( 25 ml ). the organic layer was separated and allowed to stand for 15 minutes . the organic solution was decanted from some aqueous droplets . it was then evaporated at reduced pressure to give an orange solid . the solid was dissolved in 0 . 25 m lioh ( 1 ml , 0 . 25 mmol ). the resulting black solution was stirred at room temperature for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was then acidified by dropwise addition of concentrated hcl ( 3 drops from a pasteur pipet ) to give a slurry of an orange solid . the slurry was cooled on an ice bath for 10 minutes then the solid was collected by filtration , rinsing with ice - cold water ( 2 × 2 ml ) and et 2 o ( 2 × 2 ml ). the solid was then dried under vacuum for 6 hours to afford 5 ( 13 . 5 mg , 51 %). ms ( ap − taken from a meoh solution ) 444 ( m + meoh − 1 ), 412 ( m − 1 ). nmr ( dmso - d 6 , δ ), 13 . 55 ( br , 1h , co 2 h ), 12 . 65 ( br , 1h , co 2 h ), 12 . 02 ( br , 1h , conh ), 11 . 83 ( br , 1h , nh ), 8 . 24 ( s , 1h , h - 8 ), 7 . 20 ( s , 1h , h - 3 ), 5 . 87 ( m , 1h , vinyl - h ), 5 . 05 ( dd , 1h , vinyl - h ), 4 . 99 ( dd , 1h , vinyl - h ), 4 . 03 ( t , 2h , och 2 ), 2 . 18 ( q , 2h , allyl - ch 2 ), 1 . 75 ( m , 2h , ch 2 ). a mixture of the product from example 2 ( 3 , 390 mg , 0 . 81 mmol ), edac . hcl ( 427 mg , 2 . 23 mmol ) and hobt ( 301 mg , 0 . 2 . 23 mmol ) was placed under a n 2 atmosphere . anhydrous dcm ( 10 ml ) was added and the resulting mixture was stirred for 2 minutes until a solution was obtained . a solution of o -( 11 - azido - 3 , 6 , 9 - trioxa - undecyl ) hydroxylamine ( 569 mg , 2 . 43 mmol ) in dcm ( 5 ml ) was added and stirring continued at room temperature for 2 hours . the reaction mixture was diluted with dcm ( 85 ml ), washed with 0 . 5m hcl ( 100 ml ), and then washed with water ( 100 ml ). the cloudy organic layer was separated and allowed to stand at room temperature for 10 minutes . the organic layer was decanted from some water droplets . the previous two steps ( standing and decanting ) was repeated twice more . then the solution was dried over na 2 so 4 , filtered , and evaporated to a yellow gum . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 25 g ), eluting with dcm - etoac ( gradient 97 : 3 to 85 : 15 ), followed by dcm - etoac - meoh ( 85 : 13 : 2 ) gave a yellow oil upon evaporation of solvents that begins to crystallize on standing . refrigeration for two days gives a crystalline mass that was pulverized and dried in vacuo to afford 6b ( 406 mg , 81 %). ms ( ap − taken from a solution in meoh ) 649 ( m + meoh - 1 ), 617 ( m − 1 ). a solution of the product from example 5 ( 6 , 250 mg , 0 . 4 mmol ) in thf ( 36 ml ) was treated with 1n hcl ( 0 . 4 ml ) was kept at 45 - 47 ° c . in for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was cooled to room temperature . tlc ( dcm - meoh 95 : 5 ) shows no 4 ( r f = 0 . 75 ) and one major product ( r f = 0 . 45 ). the solution was concentrated on a rotary evaporator to remove thf . the resulting mixture was partitioned between etoac ( 100 ml ) and saturated aqueous nacl ( 50 ml ). the organic layer was separated and allowed to stand for 15 minutes . the organic solution was decanted from some aqueous droplets . the last two steps ( standing and decanting ) were repeated . the resulting etoac solution was then evaporated at reduced pressure to give an orange gum . the gum was dissolved in dcm ( 20 ml ) and evaporated at reduced pressure twice to give an orange foam which was further dried in vacuo for 4 hours . the foam was dissolved in 0 . 5 m lioh ( 3 . 4 ml , 1 . 7 mmol ). the resulting black solution was stirred at room temperature for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was then acidified by dropwise addition of concentrated hcl ( 0 . 25 ml , 3 mmol ) to give red solution . the solution was partitioned between etoac ( 50 ml ), water ( 5 ml ) and saturated aqueous nacl ( 5 ml ). the organic layer was separated and allowed to stand for 15 minutes . the organic solution was decanted from some aqueous droplets . evaporation of solvent at reduced pressure gave a red gum . the gum was triturated with dcm and the resulting slurry was evaporated at reduced pressure . the resulting solid was triturated with dcm - hexanes ( 1 : 1 ), the solvent was decanted from the red - brown solid , and the solid was dried in vacuo to afford 7 ( 94 mg 43 %). ms ( ap − taken from a meoh solution ) 577 ( m + meoh - 1 ), 545 ( m − 1 ). a mixture of the product from example 2 ( 3 , 400 mg , 0 . 83 mmol ), edac . hcl ( 440 mg , 2 . 28 mmol ) and hobt ( 310 mg , 0 . 2 . 28 mmol ) was placed under a n 2 atmosphere . anhydrous dcm ( 10 ml ) was added and the resulting mixture was stirred for 2 minutes until a solution was obtained . a solution of o -( 6 -( tritylthio ) hexyl ) hydroxylamine ( 980 mg , 2 . 49 mmol ) in dcm ( 5 ml ) was added and stirring continued at room temperature for 90 minutes . the reaction mixture was diluted with dcm ( 85 ml ), washed with a mixture of water ( 100 ml ) and saturated aqueous nahco 3 ( 100 ml ). the organic layer was separated and washed with a mixture of 0 . 2n hcl ( 100 ml ) and saturated aqueous nacl ( 50 ml ). the organic layer was dried over na 2 so 4 , filtered , and evaporated to a yellow oil . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 30 g ), eluting with dcm - etoac ( gradient 98 : 2 to 85 : 15 ), followed by dcm - etoac - iproh ( 85 : 13 : 2 ) gave a yellow oil upon evaporation of solvents that begins to crystallize on standing . etoac ( 10 ml ) was added and the resulting suspension was stirred with a glass rod to pulverize the solid . the solid was collected by filtration , using additional etoac ( 12 ml ) to complete the transfer and rinse the solid . further drying in vacuo at room temperature afforded 8 ( 420 mg , 65 %) as a yellow solid . ms ( ap − taken from a solution in meoh ) 806 ( m + meoh - 1 ), 774 ( m − 1 ). ms ( ap + taken from a solution in meoh ) 806 ( m + meoh + na ), 798 ( m + na ). a solution of the product from example 7 ( 8 , 100 mg , 129 μmol ) in a mixture of anhydrous dcm ( 2 ml ) and anhydrous meoh ( 1 ml ) was treated with a solution of i 2 in meoh ( 15 . 8 mm , 4 . 4 ml , 69 μmol ). the resulting solution was stirred 40 minutes at room temperature then anhydrous pyridine ( 21 μl , 260 μmol ) was added and stirring was continued for another 40 minutes at room temperature . the reaction mixture was concentrated at reduced pressure . the residue was partitioned between etoac ( 30 ml ) and water ( 30 ml ). the organic layer was washed with saturated aqueous nacl ( 10 ml ), dried over na 2 so 4 , filtered , and evaporated at reduced pressure . flash chromatography on silica gel , eluting with dcm - etoac ( 75 : 25 ), followed by dcm - meoh ( 97 : 3 ) afforded purified 9 ( 46 mg , 65 %). ms ( ap − taken from a solution in meoh ) 1128 ( m + 2meoh - 1 ), 1096 ( m + meoh - 1 ). ms ( ap + taken from a solution in meoh ) 1151 ( m + 2meoh + na ), 1119 ( m + meoh + na ), 1088 ( m + na ), 1066 ( m + 1 ). using the method of example 5 , n -( 11 - aminooxy - 3 , 6 , 9 - trioxadodecyl )- 4 , 4 , 5 , 5 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 7 , 8 , 8 , 9 , 9 , 10 , 10 , 11 , 11 , 11 - heptadecafluoroundecanamide is acylated by 3 to afford 10 . using the method of example 6 , the product from example 9 ( compound 10 ) is deprotected and saponified to afford 11 . colorless , low density aminoethyl - agarose beads ( 1 ml ) may be suspended in mecn - pyridine ( 9 : 1 , 10 ml ) and treated with 4 -( 2 , 5 - dioxo - 1 - pyrrolidinyl )- 2 -( diphenylphosphino )- 1 , 4 - benzenedicarboxylic acid - 1 - methyl ester ( 9 , 150 mg ). the mixture may then be shaken in a sealed flask for 24 hours . the derivatized beads may then be collected by filtration and washed with mecn ( 4 × 10 ml ). the derivatized beads would be ninhydrin negative ( no color ) as compared to the starting aminoethyl - agarose which would be ninhydrin positive ( blue color ). the azido - methoxatin derivative from example 6 ( 7 , 4 . 0 mg , 7 . 3 μmol ) may be mixed with distilled water ( 0 . 4 ml ), treated with 0 . 5 m lioh ( 29 μl , 14 . 5 μmol ), and diluted with mecn ( 0 . 6 ml ) to afford a red solution . this solution may be added to the derivatized beads . the mixture may then be shaken in a capped vial for 24 hours . the solid may be collected by filtration and rinsed with mecn — h 2 o ( 1 : 1 ) until the rinse is colorless . the red color of the solid would indicate the successful conjugation of the azido - methoxatin ( 7 ) to the agarose beads . solid 5 -[ n -( 6 - aminohexyl )- 3 -( e )- acrylamido ]- 5 ′- o -( dimethoxytrityl )- 2 ′- deoxyuridine ( 12 , 0 . 5 g , 0 . 72 mmol )) and solid 4 -( 2 , 5 - dioxo - 1 - pyrrolidinyl )- 2 -( diphenylphosphino )- 1 , 4 - benzenedicarboxylic acid - 1 - methyl ester ( 13 , 0 . 33 g , 0 . 72 mmol ) were placed in a flask under n 2 atmosphere . anhydrous dcm ( 10 ml ) and anhydrous pyridine ( 1 ml ) were added and the mixture was stirred at room temperature for 18 hours . the reaction mixture was partitioned between dcm ( 25 ml ), water ( 25 ml ) and saturated aqueous nahco 3 ( 50 ml ). the organic layer was separated , dried over na 2 so 4 and filtered . evaporation of solvent at reduced pressure gave a yellow oil . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 25 g ), eluting with dcm - meoh ( gradient of 99 : 1 to 96 : 4 ) afforded purified product upon evaporation of solvents at reduced pressure . further drying in vacuo for 18 hours gave 59 mg of an off - white solid . a portion of this intermediate solid ( the dmt protected form of 14 , 157 mg , 0 . 15 mmol ) was dissolved a mixture of anhydrous thf ( 0 . 5 ml ), 1 , 1 , 1 , 3 , 3 , 3 - hexafluoro - propan - 2 - ol ( 1 . 5 ml ) and triethylsilane ( 0 . 1 ml , 0 . 63 mmol ) and stirred at room temperature for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was concentrated at reduced pressure to afford a wet paste . flash chromatography on silica gel ( 4 g ), eluting with dcm - meoh ( a gradient of 100 : 0 to 90 : 10 ) afforded purified product upon evaporation of solvent . further drying in vacuo at room temperature for 18 hours gave 14 ( 68 mg , 61 %). ms ( ap +) 743 ( m + 1 ), 765 ( m + na ). the product from example 6 ( 7 , 4 . 0 mg , 7 . 3 μmol ) was mixed with distilled water ( 0 . 4 ml ) and treated with 0 . 5 m lioh ( 29 μl , 14 . 5 μmol ). the resulting red solution was diluted with mecn ( 0 . 6 ml ). the product from example 12 ( 14 , 25 mg , 33 . 7 nmol ) was added in solid form , then the reaction mixture was placed under an atmosphere of n 2 and stirred at room temperature for 48 hours . the reaction mixture was diluted with distilled water ( 0 . 4 ml ) and the resulting solution was concentrated under a stream of n 2 gas for approximately 30 minutes until most of the mecn had evaporated which resulted in a heterogeneous mixture of solid in a red solution . the solid was removed by filtration through a plug of glass wool in a pasteur pipet , rinsing with distilled water ( 0 . 1 ml ). the combined filtrate and rinse was extracted with etoac ( 3 × 0 . 5 ml ). the red aqueous fraction was treated with a stream of n 2 gas for approximately 15 minutes , then trace solids were removed by filtration through a plug of glass wool in a pasteur pipet . the resulting red solution was acidified by addition of 1n hcl ( 30 μl , 30 nmol ) which caused a dark tar to precipitate and stick to the glass . the liquor was withdrawn with a pipet and the tar was rinsed with distilled water ( 0 . 5 ml ), which was also withdrawn with a pipet . the tar was further dissolved in mecn — h 2 o ( 1 : 1 , 1 ml ) and the solution was evaporated in vacuo at room temperature to afford 15 as a dark orange solid ( 4 mg , 44 %). ms ( ap − taken from a meoh solution ) 1278 ( m + meoh - 1 ), 1246 ( m − 1 ). the coenzyme activity of several compounds relative to native methoxatin was determined with a published assay that utilizes soluble glucose dehydrogenase ( gdh ) from acinetobactercalcoaceticus . ( misset - smits et al ., methods in enzymol ., 280 , 89 - 98 ( 1997 )). table 1 shows illustrative results for methoxatin and methoxatin derivatives with gdh assay expressed as a percentage of the methoxatin sample . compounds j and k which modify the 2 position of the methoxatin core displayed less than 0 . 1 % of the activity of the native methoxatin sample . compounds 5 and 7 displayed 40 and 45 %, respectively , of the activity of the native methoxatin sample .	2
with reference to fig1 and 2 , a computer main unit 10 is shown according to an embodiment of the present invention . the computer main unit 10 includes a panel 4 . in one embodiment , the panel 4 is disposed at an operational end of the computer main unit 10 , which is typically a front end from which disk drives and buttons are accessed . in one embodiment , the size and the shape of the panel 4 correspond to the end of the computer main unit 10 to which it is engaged . an embodiment of the invention includes an inner shield 1 , an outer shield 2 , and at least one display board 3 . fig1 shows an assembly view of an embodiment of the invention . the front panel display system can be assembled to , e . g ., the operation end of a computer main unit 10 . the inner shield 1 has a size and a shape corresponding to the operational end of the computer main unit 10 . at the upper portion of the inner shield 1 is an opening 11 for accommodating internal devices of the computer main unit , such as removable media devices . further , a lower portion of the inner shield 1 has an opening 12 for accommodating connections from external devices outside the computer main unit 10 to internal devices or other circuitry within the computer main unit 10 . the outer shield 2 can cover and join with the inner shield 1 to secure the panel 4 . preferably , the outer shield 2 is made of transparent material or otherwise configured to allow viewing of the panel 4 . further , the outer shield 2 has a size and a shape corresponding to the operation end of the main unit 10 as the inner shield does . an access port 21 can be provided to accommodate buttons 13 and other controls . in addition , the outer shield 2 is provided with a connecting hole 22 corresponding to the connecting opening 12 . the panel further includes a display board 3 . the display board 3 is configured to sit against and be secured in part by the inner shield 1 . as the assembly drawing of fig1 shows , the display board 3 is disposed between the inner shield 1 and an outer shield 2 . the display board 3 further corresponds to the shield opening 11 ; however , additional display boards 3 may be provided to cover areas corresponding to the shield opening 11 . preferably , the outer shield 2 is transparent or otherwise allows the display board 3 to be visible , either partially or entirely , when the panel is assembled . in one embodiment , the display board 3 comprises one or more a cold light plates . using a plurality of cold light plates enables two or more different color illumination layers to be provided , where each illumination layer is made from electricity excited light film material . by layering a number of cold light plates and selectively illuminating one of the plates , the colors displayed by the display board 3 can be controlled . using technology presently available , a number of different colors can be implemented , including white , orange , red , pink , green , yellow , and blue . these are achieved by selecting from rare earth elements such as prf 3 , naf 3 , smf 3 , euf 3 , tbf 3 , dyf 3 , hof 3 , erf 3 , tmf 3 , ybf 3 , and mnf 2 . the display board 3 is electrically coupled to a circuit 5 for receiving electrical energy therefrom . in the case where the display board 3 comprises one or more cold light plates , the display board uses electrical energy to generate excited cold light . in one embodiment , the circuit 5 is operatively coupled to the computer and receives electrical energy from the computer &# 39 ; s power supply . however , the circuit 5 may be separately implemented and include its own power source . the control of color selection can be set via press button or software . the circuit 5 may be attached to the main unit 10 . in another embodiment , the display board 3 comprises a liquid crystal display ( lcd ). other display devices may also be used , alone or in combination with others . with a liquid crystal display , a circuit 5 is coupled to the lcd and controls the display thereon . the display board 3 can be configured to display a solid color or any among an unlimited selection of characters , numbers , or pictures , in addition to a background . accordingly , the display board 3 can be configured to display functional information , such as the time , temperature , or characteristics of the computer , for example . with reference to fig2 again , an assembled perspective view of the panel is illustrated . due to the panel being provided with the display board 3 , colors can be shown via display and changeability of displayed colors can be achieved by way of different display materials in company with hardware design . in this way , it is possible to enhance the appearance of the computer , and to provide information to the user . in addition , as the foregoing , the background and the pictures can be operated with change between colors and the display of information can be executed accordingly . furthermore , the user can select the operation of the panel , allowing the user to customize the appearance and function of the computer main unit 10 . the foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description . it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed . persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching . it is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited not by this detailed description , but rather by the claims appended hereto .	6
the following is a detailed explanation , with reference to the attached drawings , of the apparatus for rf level stabilization of an optical link over temperature variations , and a method for using the apparatus for rf level stabilization of an optical link over temperature variations , in embodiments of the present invention . it should be noted that the same reference numbers are assigned to components having approximately the same functions and structural features in the following explanation and the attached drawings to preclude the necessity for repeated explanation thereof . [ 0029 ] fig1 shows a block diagram representation of a current stabilization system 100 for an optical link according to an embodiment of the related art . current stabilization system 100 includes a transmitter section 102 , an optical link 150 , and a receiver section 105 . transmitter section 102 includes an rf path comprising rf in amplifier circuit 110 and rf in attenuator circuit 120 , which are coupled to a laser transmitter 140 . laser transmitter 140 is powered by supply voltage v cc , and includes a laser device ( e . g ., a laser diode ) 142 , a bias input circuit 141 , and a back facet ( bf ) monitor circuit 143 . a first transmitter feedback loop 135 provides a bias current feedback signal 130 from bf monitor circuit 143 signal to the bias input circuit 141 . the bias current feedback bias signal 130 derived from the back facet monitor circuit 143 represents the dc current range of the laser device 142 . the output signal from the laser device 142 is carried over optical link 150 , and is received by receiver section 105 . receiver section 105 includes photo diode circuit 160 , which is controlled by optical modulation voltage ( omv ) control circuit 161 , and powered by supply voltage v cc . the output of photo diode circuit 160 is coupled to an rf path comprising rf out amplifier circuit 170 and rf out attenuator circuit 180 . optical link 150 may be comprised of , inter alia , erbium doped fiber amplifiers ( edfas ), semiconductor optical amplifiers ( soa &# 39 ; s ), and various kinds of optical fiber , such as , inter alia , single mode fiber ( smf ) or dispersion compensating fiber ( dcf ). an inherent drawback in the related art current stabilization system 100 , is that this current stabilization system 100 cannot compensate for two well known phenomenon , namely that the efficiency of a laser drops as temperature rises , and that tracking errors exist which prevent an exact tracking of the output level of the laser as the temperature varies . referring now to fig2 a block diagram representation of a basic rf in level stabilization system 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention . basic rf in level stabilization system 200 includes a transmitter section 202 , an optical link 150 , and a receiver section 205 . transmitter section 202 is similar to transmitter section 102 of the current stabilization system 100 of fig1 . receiver section 205 is similar to receiver section 105 of the current stabilization system 100 of fig1 except that receiver section 205 includes an added first receiver feedback loop 266 . first receiver feedback loop 266 provides a feedback signal from the optical modulation voltage ( omv ) control circuit 161 to the rf out attenuator circuit 180 . the optical modulation voltage ( omv ) control circuit 161 produces an feedback signal which is proportional to changes in the optical level of the photo diode 160 . first receiver feedback loop 266 includes a feedback attenuation circuit 265 to scale the feedback signal to a level compatible with rf out attenuator circuit 180 . this embodiment ( fig2 ) compensates for changes in the optical power , including the tracking error . however , this embodiment cannot accommodate changes in the optical modulation index caused by changes in laser efficiency . [ 0036 ] fig3 is a block diagram representation of an enhanced rf level stabilization system according to an embodiment of the present invention . enhanced rf level stabilization system 300 includes a transmitter section 302 , an optical link 150 , and a receiver section 305 . transmitter section 302 is similar to transmitter section 102 of the basic rf level stabilization system 200 of fig2 except that transmitter section 302 includes an added second transmitter feedback loop 336 . receiver section 305 is similar to receiver section 205 of the basic rf level stabilization system 200 of fig2 . second transmitter feedback loop 336 provides a feedback attenuation circuit 332 from the back facet monitor 143 to the rf in attenuator circuit 120 . the feedback attenuation circuit 332 produces an attenuated feedback signal which is proportional to the bias current from the laser . second transmitter feedback loop 336 includes a feedback attenuation circuit 332 to scale the feedback signal to a level compatible with rf out attenuator circuit 180 . feedback attenuation circuit 332 may include a diode , transistor , or other attenuation circuit ( e . g ., a pin transistor circuit ). [ 0038 ] fig4 is a block diagram representation of a full rf level stabilization system according to an embodiment of the present invention . full rf level stabilization system 400 includes a transmitter section 402 , an optical link 150 , and a receiver section 405 . transmitter section 402 is similar to transmitter section 302 of the enhanced rf level stabilization system 300 of fig3 except that two additions have been made . first , an oscillator circuit 445 has been added to the output of the rf attenuator 120 . oscillator circuit 445 introduces a signal tone of e . g ., 100 khz or thereabouts . second , a third transmitter feedback circuit 430 has been added which provides a feedback loop from the back facet monitor 430 to the rf attenuator 120 . third transmitter feedback loop 455 provides a feedback signal from the back facet monitor 143 to the rf in attenuator 120 . third transmitter feedback loop 455 includes a filter oscillator circuit , an rf detector circuit , and a feedback attenuator circuit . the rf in the transmitted signal is sensed by the rf detector circuit of feedback circuit 430 and is then fed to the feedback attenuator circuit which reduces or increases attenuation as needed . receiver section 405 is similar to receiver section 305 of the enhanced rf level stabilization system 300 of fig3 except that receiver section 405 includes an added second receiver feedback circuit 440 which provides a feedback loop from the photo diode 160 to the rf out attenuator 180 . a signal from photo diode circuit 160 is fed to second receiver feedback circuit 440 which includes a filter oscillator circuit , an rf in sensor circuit , and a feedback attenuator circuit . the rf in the received signal is sensed by the rf detector circuit of second receiver feedback circuit 440 and is then fed to the feedback attenuator circuit which reduces or increases attenuation as needed . [ 0041 ] fig5 is a block diagram representation of a functional rf level stabilization system according to an embodiment of the present invention . functional rf level stabilization system 500 includes a transmitter section 502 , an optical link 150 , and a receiver section 505 . transmitter section 502 is similar to transmitter section 402 of the full rf level stabilization system 400 of fig4 except that modulation and demodulation circuits have been added to the transmitter section 502 and the receiver section 505 , respectively . the modulation circuit 520 coupled to the oscillator circuit 445 of the transmitter section 502 enables the output signal from oscillator circuit 445 to be selectively varied , which in turn will selectively vary the output at node 410 of the rf in attenuator circuit 120 . this operation effectively tunes the output of the rf in attenuator circuit 120 , and hence the laser device 142 . similarly , the demodulation circuit 540 in receiver section 505 provides demodulation of the feedback circuit 440 . embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed . a person of ordinary skill in the art would realize , however , that certain modifications would come within the teachings of this invention . therefore , the following claims should be studied to determine the true scope and content of the invention .	7
the following description provides specific details in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention . the skilled artisan , however , would understand that the present invention can be practiced without employing these specific details . indeed , the present invention can be practiced by modifying the illustrated apparatus and method and can be used in conjunction with apparatus and techniques conventionally used in the industry . the chain tightening ( ct ) apparatus of the invention comprises at least three parts or components . the first part is an attachment for attaching the apparatus to the tire chain . the second part of the invention is a connector for connecting the attachment . the third part of the invention is a slack take - up for drawing up or tightening the connector . reference is now made to fig1 fig2 and fig3 . the chain tightening apparatus 5 of the invention comprises an attachment 20 , a connector 25 , and a slack take - up 30 . in use , as shown in fig1 the chain tightening apparatus 5 is connected to the chains 10 on tire 15 . the apparatus of the invention can be employed on any type of chains 10 known in the art , such as chains for use in mud , ice and snow . indeed , the apparatus of the invention can be used on any chains used to increase the traction of tires on any type of surface . the only requirement for the chains 10 is that , as described below , the attachment 20 of the chain tightening apparatus 5 is able to attach to the chains . tire chains typically comprise two closed loops connected by cross - chains . when attached to the tire , the closed loops extend around the inside and outside sidewalls spaced from the tread with the cross - chains extending over the tread . the apparatus of the present invention is usually connected at spaced intervals on the loop on the outside sidewall . accordingly the attachments 20 are spaced generally around a circumference of a circle defined by the loop . however , any chain construction that allows such radial spacing of the attachments is contemplated . such construction includes “ chains ” or antiskid devices that are not constructed of linked chain structures , but can still provide the attachments as described herein and can be held and tightened on the tire by the tightening force of the invention . any tire 15 known in the art can be employed in the invention . the apparatus of the invention 5 can be modified for any size and shape of tire by increasing ( or decreasing ) the number of attachments 20 and increasing ( or decreasing ) the length of the connection 25 described below . as well , the apparatus of the invention can be used with tires on self - propelled equipment and on motorized vehicles as well as on other wheeled apparatus pulled by motorized vehicles . for example , the chain tightening apparatus of the invention can be used with tires on cars , trucks , busses , semi - trucks and trailers , farm equipment , commercial equipment , lawn and garden tractors , and self - propelled snowblowers . to illustrate the invention , a tire with a width of about nine inches and a diameter of about 22 . 5 inches is depicted in fig1 . as illustrated in fig1 the ct apparatus 5 contains attachments 20 , connector 25 for connecting the attachments and slack take - up 30 . the function of an attachment 20 is to attach the ct apparatus to the chains 10 . the connector 25 connects the various attachments 20 together . the slack take - up 30 pulls on or tensions the connector 25 to draw up or tighten the connector . as mentioned above , the attachments 20 attach the ct apparatus 5 to the chains 10 . the attachments 20 can be attached to the desired portions of the chains 10 preferably after the chains are attached to the tire . the attachments 20 are removably attached to the chains so that the ct apparatus 5 can be used together with the chains or so that the chains can be used as - is without the ct apparatus . once attached and the connector is tensioned , however , the attachments 20 should securely attach the ct apparatus 5 to the chains 10 . any suitable attachments 20 known in the art accomplishing these functions can be employed in the invention . examples of such attachments 20 include clips , hooks such as retractable hooks and s - hooks , latches and clasps . preferably , s - hooks 20 are employed , as illustrated in the figures , as these securely attach to the chains while being removable . as depicted particularly in fig3 the larger loop of an individual s - hook is connected to an individual link 40 of the chain 10 . when used in combination with the rest of the ct apparatus 5 , an attachment 20 pulls on link 40 which in turn pulls on other connecting links until the links are tight against tire 15 . the attachments 20 are connected to a plurality of locations on the chains 10 . the number of the attachments ( and the corresponding number of attachment locations on the chains 10 ) depends on the circumference of the tire , the type ( and size ) of chains used , the type of attachment and the type of tire used . the number of attachments can typically range from 6 to 10 but a greater number of attachments could be used . in one aspect of the invention illustrated in fig1 s - hooks are employed in the ct apparatus of the invention . the attachments 20 are also connected to the connector 25 . while the attachments 20 and connector 25 can be removably connected , the attachments are preferably permanently connected in a secure fashion to the connector that allows the connector to easily slide through each attachment 20 . any suitable connection system known in the art can be used between the attachment and the connector . the type of connection will depend in part on the attachment used in the ct apparatus . for example , when s - hooks are employed as the attachment , the smaller loop of the s - hook can enclose a cable - type connector as more fully described below . the connector 25 of the ct apparatus connects through all of the multiple attachments 20 . as described in more detail below , the connector 25 is movably connected to the attachments 20 . this is required so that when the connector 25 is tightened , the force from the tightening is more or less distributed evenly among the connector . while , an attachment may be fixed to the connector , preferably , no single portion of the connector is immovably attached to any given attachment 20 . an example is show in fig2 and 5 , which show a cable connector slidably attached to s - hook attachments . thus , the connector 25 exhibits the ability to move ( or slide ) with respect to any given attachment and corresponding chains 10 to which the attachments are connected . any connector known in the art functioning in the above manner can be employed in the present invention . examples of connectors that can be employed in the present invention include wires , straps , cording and cable . preferably , a cable in the form of a loop is employed as the connector . as illustrated particularly in fig2 and 5 ( showing s - hook attachments together ), the cable - type connector 45 connects to all the s - hooks by passing through the s - hooks in a manner that allows the s - hooks to slide along the cable . the connector 25 is made of any suitable material known in the art that is sufficiently strong , e . g ., not breakable when the ct apparatus is used in the manner described herein . further , the material used for the connector should allow the attachments 20 to easily move along its length . it should be flexible so that it can have various configurations and can be transported easily . as well , the material for the connector should be lightweight . any materials satisfying these criteria can be employed in the invention as the material for the connector . exemplary materials for the connector include high - strength polymers , composite materials , metals , and twisted multiple - strand cable . ⅛ inch diameter galvanized aircraft cable employed as the material for the connector has been found suitable . the length of the connector is such that when attached through the attachments , and the connector is tightened , the combination functions to tighten the chains upon the tire . the size is generally determined by the projected size of the tires for which the chain tightening apparatus of the invention will be used . when cable is used as the connector , the length of the loop of the cable will typically be slightly smaller than the circumference of the tire . in one aspect of the invention , the circumference of the loop is about 5 feet to accommodate standard tire sizes for pick - ups , passenger cars , and sport utility vehicles . in another aspect of the invention , the circumference is about 8 feet to accommodate commercial vehicles , such as semi - trucks and trailers . the connector 25 of the ct apparatus 5 may be a permanently closed - end loop on which the slack take - up 30 is non - detachable by virtue of the connector running through a hole in the slack take - up , which in the illustrated slack take - up passes through the inner cylinder 55 . such is the configuration for a standard 5 foot or 8 foot diameter permanently closed - end loop connector in the aspect of the invention illustrated in fig2 . in another aspect of the invention , as illustrated in fig5 the connector consists of an open - ended length of a suitable material for the connector 25 ( such as a cable ) which separately attaches to the slack take - up 30 using , for example , a slotted coupling device on one side of an outer cylinder walls 65 or through a slot 105 in the inner cylinder of the slack take - up 30 . the third component of the ct apparatus is the slack take - up 30 . by applying a rotational force to the slack take - up 30 , the slack take - up pulls on or tensions the connector 25 to draw up or tighten the connector and then retains the connector 25 in the tightened position while the ct apparatus remains installed on the chains and tire . any device which accomplishes these functions can be employed as the slack take - up 30 in the invention . see , for example , the device described in u . s . pat . nos . 4 , 173 , 244 , 4185 , 674 , 4 , 237 , 951 , 4 , 266 , 593 , 4 , 392 , 521 , 4 , 679 , 608 , 4 , 799 , 522 , 5 , 284 , 196 , 5 , 785 , 783 , 5 , 804 , 001 , 6 , 026 , 876 , and 6 , 085 , 816 , the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference . in one aspect of the invention , the device depicted in the figures and shown particularly in fig4 and fig6 is employed as the slack take - up . this device comprises a take - up reel 50 containing an inner cylinder 55 enclosed by two outer circular walls 60 and 65 of a larger diameter . the inner cylinder contains a hole 70 running through its diameter through which a cable - type connector 25 passes . the inner cylinder can be any diameter but is preferably about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inches in diameter . the diameter of hole 70 is sufficient to allow the cable loop to slide easily through the hole . the diameter of the outer cylinder walls can vary , but should be of sufficient diameter to take up and retain the slack in the connector . in the aspect of the invention illustrated in fig4 the diameter of the outer cylinder walls is about 3 inches . an indentation 75 is located on the outer side of one of the outer cylinder walls at its center . this indentation is designed to operably connect with a tool , or the like , to rotate the slack take - up as described in more detail below . thus , the indentation 75 can take on any number of shapes and sizes depending on the tool or mechanism used to rotate the slack take - up 30 . in one aspect of the invention , the indentation has a rectangular shape as depicted in fig4 . reference is now also made to fig6 . an indented slot 105 extends on the outer side of one of the outer cylinder walls 65 to receive and retain the two ends of an open - ended connector 25 . this convention is used to allow any variable length of a connector 25 to be utilized by the ct apparatus in order to accommodate any non - standard tire sizes , such as tires on a large commercial farming tractor . any closing structure for closing or securing the ends of an open loop cable to form a closed loop is contemplated by the present invention . in the aspect of the invention shown in fig6 each of the open - ended cable ends of a connector are crimped with a stop 110 and cable ends with the stops are each inserted into the indented slot 105 to complete a secured loop of the connector . the connector slack is then drawn up on the reel 50 of the slack take up 30 . the stop 110 can be any suitable structure formed by crimping , molding , or bolting , or by any other way of attaching a stop to the cable end . in one aspect of the invention , the inner cylinder also contains a narrow slot 115 , extending along a major portion of the width of the inner cylinder through which the open ends of an open - ended connector consisting of a web or woven strapping material can be inserted in opposing directions to complete a secured loop of the connector . reference is now made to fig6 a . an end of the cable 45 is passed through the cylinder hole 70 and a stop 110 attached to the end to prevent it from passing back through the cylinder hole 70 . the other end of the cable is wrapped around the inner cylinder 55 of the take - up reel 50 a enough times to resist unwrapping of the cable ( e . g ., two or three times ) and the free end passed through slot 105 . this secures the cable into a closed loop . the connector slack is then drawn up on the reel 50 of the slack take up 30 . referring again to fig6 the outer cylinder walls 60 and 65 contain a plurality of holes 80 around their outer circumference , with holes on one outer cylinder wall matching corresponding holes on the other cylinder wall to make sets of paired opposing holes 85 . any number and location of holes 80 ( and sets of paired holes 85 ) can be employed consistent with their purpose as described below . located on opposing sides of any given outer cylinder wall are retaining pins 90 . the retaining pins have a straight side 95 that slides into any given set of paired holes 85 . the retaining pins 90 also contain an opposing side 100 that locks the retaining pin 90 into the set of holes 85 . accordingly the pins are locked through the slack take - up 30 during a time the ct apparatus is installed on the tire , but can be manually inserted and removed by hand or by a tool when the tire is not rotating . the opposing side 100 can have any configuration - i . e ., shape or size - accomplishing this locking function . in one aspect of the invention , the configuration of the opposing side is depicted in fig6 . in this configuration , the opposing side has at least one narrow part in close proximity to the straight side 95 such that when inserted into the set of paired holes 85 , the narrow part abuts the edge of at least one outer cylinder . when forced past the edge , the retaining pin 90 thereby locks the take - up reel in that position until manually removed . the ct apparatus of the invention is used in the following manner . a tire is equipped with a chain as known in the art . a ct apparatus for the given size of the tire and the configuration of the chain is then attached by first attaching multiple attachments 20 on the connector 25 . for example , this is performed by providing the s - hooks on a connector 25 in the form of a cable 45 , which is shown in fig2 , 5 and 6 . next , the connector 25 is already attached to the slack take - up through the cylinder hole 70 if , for example , a closed - end connector 25 is used ; or if an open - end connector securing the connector into a closed loop by any suitable method , such as by attaching the open ends to the indented slot 105 or passing the ends through the slot 115 in the inner cylinder in opposite directions . in each case , the cable is secured to form a completed loop . the assembled ct apparatus is then placed on chains 10 using the following procedure . the attachments 20 are first attached to the chain approximately equidistant around the circumference of the connector 25 . for example , the s - hooks an be attached to individual links of the chain at selected locations . the locations are selected for a uniform spacing between successive s - hooks . the slack take - up 30 is then used to draw up or tighten the connector 25 until the desired tension is reached . in the aspect illustrated in fig4 and 6 , the take - up reel 50 is rotated , usually by means of a tool operably connected at indentation 75 , to tighten the connector until the attachments 20 pull the chains 10 into a tight position . because of the sliding relationship of connector 25 to the attachments 20 , a uniform tension will result . when tightened in this manner , the take - up reel 50 is not at the center of the tire . rather , the take - up reel is on the circumference of the connector similar to that depicted in fig1 . the take - up reel 50 is then locked in the tightened position where uniform tension is distributed throughout the chain by reinserting the previously removed retaining pins 90 while holding the take - up reel with a tool that fits within indentation 75 to wind or draw the excess cable of the loop onto the inner cylinder of the take - up reel . the tool may be any suitable structure that provides the suitable leverage and fits in indentation , such as , for example , a ratchet . the reinserted retaining pins prevent the connector 25 from unwinding . when the tire rotates , the locked take - up reel retains the connector in its tightened position 30 , maintaining the uniform tension obtained when the take - up reel was tightened . when the user wishes to remove the tire chains , the ct apparatus is easily removed by removing the retaining pins , which allows the cable to loosen , permitting the s - hooks to be removed . the chain may then be removed from the tire . in an alternate aspect of the invention , the ct apparatus has a ratcheting mechanism built into the ct apparatus . in this instance removable pins would not be required . instead , the mechanism would involve a take - up reel rotating on a second shaft that holds the ratcheting mechanism , with one end of a cable connector attached to an outer wall and the other end connected to the take up reel . the reel is rotated around the ratchet mechanism to take up the slack and would have a release device to allow the ratchet mechanism to release the cable so that the ct apparatus can be removed . other suitable ratchet , winch , lever or other mechanisms that can take up slack and maintain the tension on the connector as described herein , are contemplated in the present invention . unlike apparatus known in the prior - art , the ct apparatus of the invention achieves a uniform tension on the chains . the uniform tension is obtained since the connector is drawn linearly along its circumference creating a corresponding uniform pull of the tire chains in a radial direction through the attachments toward the center of the tire , like pulling the drawstring on a knapsack . the chain links not directly connected to attachments are likewise drawn tight via their linked interconnection to the attached links . none of the apparatus in the prior - art provide this same uniform radial pull by circumferentially tightening the connector . if desired , any metal parts comprising the ct apparatus can be plastic - coated to inhibit rust formation and other corrosion . the slack take - up can be made from high - impact plastic , metal , or any other suitable material . the size and strength of the individual components will depend upon the size of the tire and the weight of the chains that are installed on the tire . having described the preferred embodiments of the present invention , it is understood that the invention defined by the appended claims is not to be limited by particular details set forth in the above description , as many apparent variations thereof are possible without departing from the spirit or scope thereof .	8
a child restraint 10 in accordance with the present disclosure includes a juvenile seat 12 and belt - guide clip 14 a , 14 b as shown in fig1 - 4 . belt - guide clip 114 a is coupled to juvenile seat 12 to engage a lap belt 16 and is configured provide means for establishing a modified axis of rotation 20 about which child restraint 10 rotates about toward a vehicle passenger seat 18 during a rebound portion of an impact event as shown in fig5 - 7 . a second embodiment of a belt - guide clip 114 in accordance with the present disclosure is shown in fig8 - 11 . a third embodiment of a belt - guide clip 214 in accordance with the present disclosure is shown in fig1 - 15 . child restraint 10 is support by vehicle passenger seat 18 in a rear - facing orientation as shown in fig1 . a child ( not shown ) restrained by child restraint 10 faces toward a seat back 18 a included in vehicle passenger seat 18 when child restraint 10 is in the rear - facing orientation . lap belt 16 included in vehicle passenger seat 18 interconnects child restraint 10 to a seat bottom 18 b included in vehicle passenger seat 18 as shown in fig1 . during an impact event ( e . g ., a front impact to the vehicle ), child restraint 10 in the rear - facing orientation first moves away from seat back 18 a and shown in fig5 and 6 and then rebounds and moves in a direction back toward seat back 18 b as shown in fig7 . belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b of child restraint 10 cooperate with lap belt 16 to limit rebounding movement of child restraint 10 back toward seat back 18 b . child restraint 10 includes juvenile seat 12 and first and second belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b as shown in fig4 . one belt - guide clip 14 a is coupled to a first side of a seat bottom 22 included in juvenile seat 12 and the other belt - guide clip 14 b is coupled to an opposite second side of seat bottom 22 as suggested in fig4 . lap belt 16 is routed upwardly from vehicle passenger seat 18 , through first belt - guide clip 14 a , through seat bottom 22 , through second belt - guide clip 14 b , and back to vehicle passenger seat 18 . while only lap belt 16 is shown , any other suitable passenger belt or belts may be used . during the impact event , an external force f 1 is applied to the vehicle and transferred to child restraint 10 as suggested in fig5 . belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b engage lap belt 16 and cooperate with lap belt 16 to modify movement of child restraint 10 in response to application of external force f 1 . movement is modified as a result of belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b engaging lap belt 16 to cause rotation of child restraint 10 about modified axis of rotation 20 to be minimized during a rear - facing rebound portion of the impact . second belt - guide clip 14 b is substantially the same as first belt - guide clip 14 a and the description of first belt - guide clip 14 a applicable to second belt - guide clip 14 b . first belt - guide clip 14 a includes first and second retainer tabs 23 , 24 , fasteners 25 , 26 , first and second support rails 27 , 28 , and a cantilevered belt - retainer arm 30 as shown in fig3 . first and second retainer tabs 23 , 24 are arranged to receive associated fasteners 25 , 26 therein to couple belt - guide clip 14 a to seat bottom 22 of juvenile vehicle seat 12 . first and second support rails 27 , 28 are arranged to extend between first and second retainer tabs 23 , 24 to form a guide slot 32 therebetween as shown in fig3 . cantilevered belt - retainer arm 30 is arranged to extend from first retainer tab 23 toward second retainer tab 24 . belt - guide clip 14 a is configured to receive lap belt 16 between belt - retainer arm 30 and first and second support rails 27 , 28 to retain lap belt 16 relative to juvenile vehicle seat 12 so that modified axis of rotation 20 is established during the impact event . juvenile seat 12 includes seat bottom 22 , a seat back 34 , a seat support 36 , and a seat lock 38 as shown in fig4 . seat back 34 is arranged to extend upwardly from seat bottom 22 . first and second belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b are coupled to opposite sides of seat bottom 22 . seat support 36 is arranged to underlie seat bottom 22 . seat lock 38 is configured to vary a tilt angle of juvenile seat 12 relative to seat support 36 . child restraint 10 moves as suggested in fig5 - 7 in response to application of external force f 1 from an impact event . belt - clip guides 14 a , 14 b are configured to minimize rebounding movement of the child restraint 10 as shown in fig7 . child restraint 10 is installed on vehicle passenger seat 18 in the rear - facing position in which a child ( not shown ) seated in child restraint 10 faces toward seat back 18 b of vehicle passenger seat 18 . application of external force f 1 to vehicle passenger seat 18 and child restraint 10 causes child restraint 10 to first pivot in a first direction 40 ( double phantom arrow ) away from seat back 18 b of vehicle passenger seat 18 as shown in fig5 . after child restraint 10 has rotated in first direction 40 away from seat back 18 b of vehicle passenger seat 18 in response to application of external force f 1 , child restraint 10 rebounds by rotating about modified axis of rotation 20 in a second direction 42 ( double phantom arrow ) toward seat back 18 b as shown in fig6 and 7 . rotation of child restraint 10 in second direction 42 is limited by belt - guide clips 14 a , 14 b establishing modified axis of rotation 20 . a child restraint 110 in accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure includes juvenile seat 12 and first and second belt - guide clips 114 a , 114 b as shown in fig8 . one belt - guide clip 114 a is coupled to a first side of a seat bottom 22 included in juvenile seat 12 and the other belt - guide clip 114 b is coupled to an opposite second side of seat bottom 22 as suggested in fig8 . lap belt 16 is routed upwardly from vehicle passenger seat 18 , through first belt - guide clip 114 a , through seat bottom 22 , through second belt - guide clip 114 b , and back to vehicle passenger seat 18 . during the impact event , an external force f 1 is applied to the vehicle and transferred to child restraint 110 . belt - guide clips 114 a , 114 b engage lap belt 16 and cooperate with lap belt 16 to modify movement of child restraint 110 in response to application of external force f 1 . movement is modified as a result of belt - guide clips 114 a , 114 b engaging lap belt 16 to cause rotation of child restraint 110 about modified axis of rotation 20 to be minimized during a rear - facing rebound portion of the impact . second belt - guide clip 114 b is substantially the same as first belt - guide clip 114 a and the description of first belt - guide clip 114 a is applicable to second belt - guide clip 114 b . first belt - guide clip 114 a includes a back clamp 124 , a front clamp 126 , and a latch 128 as shown in fig9 - 11 . back clamp 124 is arranged to couple belt - guide clip 114 b to seat bottom 22 of juvenile seat 12 and includes teeth 124 t configured to engage a back side of lap belt 16 . front clamp 126 is coupled to a first end of back clamp 124 to pivot relative to the back clamp 124 and includes teeth 126 t configured to engage a front side of the lap belt 16 . latch 128 is coupled to a second end of back clamp 124 to pivot relative to back clamp 124 and configured to engage front clamp 126 to block relative movement between front and back clamps 124 , 126 when belt - guide clip 114 a is in a closed position so that lap belt 16 remains engaged with belt - guide clip 114 a . belt - guide clip 114 a is movable between an opened position as shown in fig9 and 11 and a closed position as shown in fig8 and 10 . lap belt 16 may be installed in belt - guide clip 114 a between front and back clamps 124 , 126 when belt - guide clip 114 a is in the opened position . when belt - guide clip 114 a is in the closed position , lap belt 16 remains engaged with belt - guide clip 114 a between front and back clamps 124 , 126 . belt - guide clip 114 a is configured to receive lap belt 16 between front and back clamps 124 , 126 to retain lap belt 16 relative to juvenile vehicle seat 12 so that modified axis of rotation 20 is established during the impact event . a child restraint 210 in accordance with another embodiment of the present disclosure includes juvenile seat 12 and first and second belt - guide clips 214 a , 214 b as shown in fig1 . one belt - guide clip 214 a is coupled to a first side of a seat bottom 22 included in juvenile seat 12 and the other belt - guide clip 214 b is coupled to an opposite second side of seat bottom 22 as suggested in fig1 . lap belt 16 is routed upwardly from vehicle passenger seat 18 , through first belt - guide clip 214 a , through seat bottom 22 , through second belt - guide clip 214 b , and back to vehicle passenger seat 18 . during the impact event , an external force f 1 is applied to the vehicle and transferred to child restraint 210 . belt - guide clips 214 a , 214 b engage lap belt 16 and cooperate with lap belt 16 to modify movement of child restraint 210 in response to application of external force f 1 . movement is modified as a result of belt - guide clips 214 a , 214 b engaging lap belt 16 to cause rotation of child restraint 210 about modified axis of rotation 20 to be minimized during a rear - facing rebound portion of the impact . second belt - guide clip 214 b is substantially the same as first belt - guide clip 214 a and the description of first belt - guide clip 214 a is applicable to second belt - guide clip 214 b . first belt - guide clip 214 a includes a back clamp 224 , a front clamp 226 , and a latch 228 as shown in fig1 - 15 . back clamp 224 is arranged to couple belt - guide clip 214 b to seat bottom 22 of juvenile seat 12 . front clamp 226 is coupled to a first end of back clamp 224 to pivot relative to the back clamp 224 and includes teeth 226 t configured to engage a front side of the lap belt 16 . latch 228 is coupled to a second end of back clamp 224 to pivot relative to back clamp 224 and configured to engage front clamp 226 to block relative movement between front and back clamps 224 , 226 when belt - guide clip 214 a is in a closed position so that lap belt 16 remains engaged with belt - guide clip 214 a . belt - guide clip 214 a is movable between an opened position as shown in fig1 and 15 and a closed position as shown in fig1 and 14 . lap belt 216 may be installed in belt - guide clip 214 a between front and back clamps 224 , 226 when belt - guide clip 214 a is in the opened position . when belt - guide clip 214 a is in the closed position , lap belt 16 remains engaged with belt - guide clip 214 a between front and back clamps 224 , 226 . belt - guide clip 214 a is configured to receive lap belt 16 between front and back clamps 224 , 226 to retain lap belt 16 relative to juvenile vehicle seat 12 so that modified axis of rotation 20 is established during the impact event .	1
an embodiment of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings . bombyx mori cocoon was degummed with 0 . 5 % marseilles soap at a cocoon - soap solution ratio of 1 : 200 for 30 min at a temperature of 100 ° c . after this was performed twice , the result was washed with distilled water to obtain degummed cocoon . the degummed cocoon was dissolved at a temperature of 40 ° c . in a 9 m aqueous solution of lithium bromide ( libr ), and dialyzed after which approximately 4w / w % of a bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin solution was obtained . the solution of bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin was mixed with 0 . 2 wt % of the dried fibroin glucose oxidase ( god ). the liquid was cast on an acrylic sheet and dried at 4 ° c ., thereby providing a god - fixed regenerated silk fibroin membrane having a membrane thickness of 27 um . the biocatalyst - fixed membranes prepared as described above were subjected to a methanol treatment , which entailed dipping the membranes in an 80 % aqueous solution for 30 sec ( hereinafter referred to as &# 34 ; me30 &# 34 ;), 3 min ( hereinafter referred to as &# 34 ; me3 &# 34 ;) and 24 hrs ( hereinafter referred to as &# 34 ; me24 &# 34 ;), respectively , followed by washing with water . the biocatalyst - fixed membranes prepared as described above were subjected to a stretching treatment , which entailed attaching each membrane to a stretcher , placing the stretcher together with the attached membrane in a sealed box for 30 min in which the environment was held at a temperature of 20 ° c . and a relative humidity of 90 %, thereafter stretching the membranes in the box at a tensioning rate of 0 . 2 mm / sec , and structurally stabilizing the membranes at given degree of stretching of 1 . 25x , 1 . 5x , 2 . 0x and 3 . 0x ( hereinafter represented by dr1 . 25 , dr1 . 5 , dr2 . 0 and dr3 . 0 ) for 10 min and at a relatively humidity of 40 % for 10 min . the biocatalyst - fixed membranes prepared as described above were preserved in a dry state at a temperature of 4 ° c . until biocatalyst stability was measured . prior to measurement of biocatalyst stability , each biocatalyst - fixed membrane was dipped in a 0 . 1 m phosphate buffer solution ( ph 7 . 0 ). the biocatalyst activities of the god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes were measured quantitatively by colorimetry and a dissolved oxygen electrode . the spectrophotometer used was a model u - 3200 ( manufactured by hitachi , ltd . ), and the oxygen electrode was a model bo ( manufactured by ishikawa seisakusho , k . k .). for comparison purposes , free god was also measured . the amount of eluted protein was determined by the lowry method . the permeabilities of the membranes were measured by a differential birefringencemeter ( manufactured by nippon bunseki kogyo k . k .) using a 0 . 1 m aqueous glucose solution . a 13 c nmr measurement was carried out using an fx - 90q ( manufactured by jeol ) at a frequency of 22 . 49 mhz and a temperature of 25 ° c . an ir measurement ( infra - red analysis ) was performed using an ir - 435 ( manufactured by shimazu seisakusho k . k .). the ir spectra of the stretched god - fixed regenerated silk fibroin membranes are illustrated in fig1 . peak intensity at 700cm - 1 of the amide band v increased owing to the stretching treatment , and it was verified that silk fibroin membrane took partially β - form . immediately after membrane formation ( i . e . prior to stretching ), there were many random coil regions in the silk fibroin membranes , and these would redissolve if the membranes were immersed in water as is . however , insoluble membranes could be fabricated by increasing the crystallization between the molecular chains of the silk fibroin , this being accomplished by mere stretching of the membranes . the β - form mentioned above refers to achieving hydrogen bonds between the molecular chains to provide a dense structure , thereby realizing structural stabilization to prevent elution of the fixed biocatalyst . the random coil regions refer to regions in which the biocatalyst readily dissolves in water because of comparatively little interaction between molecular chains . even when stretched bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes not containing god were immersed in a phosphate buffer solution ( ph 7 . 0 ), the amount of eluted protein bombyx mori silk fibroin after 10 days was less than 0 . 02 ± 0 . 01 w / w % in all cases . fig2 illustrates 13 c nmr ( nuclear magnetic resonance ) spectra of the insolubilized god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes . though considerable mobile components which give a high - resolution peak rem in in methanol - treated membranes b , these components are reduced in stretched membranes c . this indicates there is a highly non - homogeneous structure between the β - form regions near the surface and the internal mobile regions in the case of the methanol treatment , and that β - form tends to proceed through the entirety of the membrane when the stretching treatment is applied . table 1 shows the results of determining , by colorimetry , the rate of hydrogen peroxide formation which accompanies the biocatalyst reaction of god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes . table 1______________________________________rate of hydrogen peroxide formationaccompanying biocatalyst reaction of god - fixedbombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes reaction rate × 10 . sup . 4 reaction rate × 10 . sup . 2stretching ( absorbance / min cm . sup . 2 ) ( absorbance / min mg ) ______________________________________dr 1 . 25 7 . 22 5 . 26dr 1 . 5 6 . 12 5 . 23dr 2 . 0 4 . 50 4 . 90dr 3 . 0 4 . 06 6 . 01methanoltreatmentme 30 ( 30 sec ) 6 . 5 3 . 87me 3 ( 3 min ) 5 . 6 3 . 33me 24 ( 24 hr ) 5 . 1 3 . 04______________________________________ a comparison of the methanol - treated membranes and stretched membranes shows no great difference in reaction rate per unit surface area . however , in terms of reaction rate per unit weight of the biocatalyst , the comparison reveals that the stretched membranes tend to have higher reaction rates than the methanol - treated membranes in all cases . as for the effect of degree of stretching on biocatalyst stability , reaction rate per unit surface area gradually declines with an increase in the percent of stretch . however , there is no significant change in reaction rate per unit amount of biocatalyst with a change in degree of stretch . in many cases , the rate of reaction of fixed biocatalyst is influenced by the diffusion rate of the substrate in the carrier . upon measuring the glucose permeability of the silk fibroin membrane , it was found that the permeability constant declined markedly with an increase in stretching , as shown in fig3 . this indicates that the biocatalyst reaction of a stretch - treated bombyx mori regenerated silk filbrin membrane has a correlation with the permeability of glucose , which is the substrate . fig4 ( a ), ( b ) are views illustrating the results of determining the biocatalyst activities of god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes by a dissolved oxygen electrode , and fig5 is a table showing michaelis constants km and maximum reaction rates vm obtained from fig4 ( a ), ( b ), in which [ s ] represents the substrate concentration . these results show that the biocatalyst activities of the stretched god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes are higher overall than those of the methanol - treated membranes , and that the higher the stretching , the higher the biocatalyst stability . the stability of biocatalyst stability with respect to a change in ph is shown in fig6 . it was found that the god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membranes have stability that is more stable than free god with respect to a change in ph , and that the ph range indicating relative actitivies of 80 % or more is a broad ph 5 - 8 . fig9 ( a ), ( b ) are schematic views of a glucose sensor fabricated by coating an oxygen electrode with a god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membrane embodying the present invention . numeral 91 denotes a well - known oxygen electrode , 92 a god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membrane , 93 a voltage measuring device , 94 a stirrer for stirring a glucose solution 96 , and 95 a vessel through which thermostated water is passed to hold the glucose solution 96 at a constant temperature . fig9 ( b ) is an enlarged view of the tip of the glucose sensor . numeral 91a denotes a platinum electrode , 91b an internal liquid chamber , and 97 a teflon membrane having gas permeability . the teflon membrane 97 is coated with the god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membrane 92 . the characteristics of this glucose sensor were measured voltometrically by the voltage measuring device 93 . fig7 and 10 are graphs in which the glucose sensor output voltage is plotted against glucose concentration , and fig8 is a graph illustrating the stability of the glucose sensor output with respect to a change in ph . these graphs demonstrate that the god - fixed bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membrane of the present embodiment can be used satisfactorily as the biocatalyst membrane of a glucose sensor , and that stability is high over a ph range of 5 - 8 . an ion sensor in accordance with the invention has excellent performance , as will now be illustrated . performance of a glucose sensor using a stretched bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin membrane as a biocatalyst - fixed carrier : repetitive measurement error : less 0 . 9 % ( 30 runs ) where god : aspergillus niger thus , in accordance with the invention , there is provided an biocatalyst sensor using an biocatalyst - fixed membrane in which , by exploiting the structural characteristics of silk fibroin to employ the same as an biocatalyst bombyx mori regenerated fixed material , the stability of the biocatalyst - containing membrane is raised , the leakage of biocatalyst is minimized and biocatalyst stability is prolonged . in the biocatalyst sensor of the invention , the structural change of the biocatalyst - containing regenerated silk fibroin membrane is manifested solely by a stretching treatment without any chemical processing . as a result , the following advantages are obtained : ( 3 ) the stability of the biocatalyst in the membrane does not change for more than four months . though glucose is selected to typify the biocatalyst in the illustrated embodiment , it is obvious that other biocatalysts can be used . in addition , the technical concept of the invention is not limited to bombyx mori but can also be applied to other biocatalyst - fixed membranes such as wild silkworm regenerated silk fibroin membranes , microbial membranes and membranes made of animal and vegetable cells . bombyx mori cocoon was degummed with 0 . 5 % marseilles soap at a cocoon - soap ratio of 1 : 200 for 30 min at a temperature of 100 ° c . after this was performed twice , the result was washed with distilled water to obtain degummed cocoon . the degummed cocoon was dissolved at a temperature of 40 ° c . in a 9 m aqueous solution of lithium bromide ( libr ), and dialyzed after which approximately 4w / w % of a bombyx mori regenerated silk fibroin solution was obtained . a glucose oxidase solution in an amount of 0 . 2 wt % of the weight of fibroin was mixed gently with the regenerated fibroin solution . the concentration of glucose oxidase is preferably 0 . 002 % to 6 %, and , if it is less than 0 . 002 %, the response becomes deteriorated when glucose oxidase is applied to a biocatalyst sensor . if the concentration of glucose oxidase exceeds 6 %, glucose is likely to elute from the biocatalyst - fixed membrane . the liquid was cast on an acrylic sheet and air - dried at 20 ° c ., thereby providing a glucose oxidase - fixed silk fibroin membrane 1 . a compression treatment was performed by placing the membrane in a shield box in an atmosphere at 20 ° c . and a relative humidity of 90 %. the temperature is preferably - 10 ° c . to 60 ° c . if the temperature is below - 10 ° c ., freezing is likely to occur , and , if it exceeds 60 ° c ., the biocatalyst is likely to become deactivated . in addition , the relative humidity is preferably 70 % or above , and , if it is less than 70 %, the β - form region is not produced . the membrane was then removed and placed in a charta 2 , and a predetermined pressure ( at 560 kgf / cm 2 for two min . in this case ) was applied thereto . subsequently , the pressurized membrane was held for 10 min in an atmosphere at a humidity of 40 % to achieve structural stabilization . the pressurizing force is preferably 140 to 700 kgf / cm 2 , while the pressurizing time is preferably 1 min or more . if the pressurizing force is low and the time is short , both the biocatalyst and the silk fibroin elute from a preserving solution ( phosphate buffer solution ). a methanol treatment for comparison was effected by immersing the membrane in a 80 % aqueous solution for 30 sec followed by washing . the treated membrane was preserved in a 0 . 1 m phosphate buffer solution ( ph 7 . 0 ) until the biocatalyst stability was measured . a glucose oxidase solution in an amount of 0 . 002wt % of the weight of fibroin was fixed by a compression treatment in the same way as example 2 - 1 , therely preparing a god - fixed membrane . pseudomonas fluorescens which exhibits a god stability was fixed as microorganism with a fixing amount of 1 . 2 wt % by a compression treatment in the same way as the god - fixed membrane of example 2 - 1 , thereby preparing a microorganism - fixed membrane . glucose and oxygen undergo biocatalyst reaction due to glucose oxydase . by using a circuit similar to the one shown in fig9 ( a ) in the same way as in example 1 , measurement was made of the amount of oxygen consumed in this biocatalyst reaction by means of a commercially available biocatalyst electode 5 ( a model bo manufactured by ishikawa seisakusho , k . k .) so as to evaluate the stability . incidentally , measurement was similarly conducted with respect to free glucose oxidase - and methanol - treated fixed membranes to provide comparative examples . measurement was made of the relative stability with respect to membranes subjected to heat treatment at 30 min at a given temperature with room temperature ( 25 ° c .) set as 100 . as a result , it was found that the compression - treated membranes displayed more excellent thermal stability than the free biocatalysts , as shown in fig1 . measurement was made of the stability relative to the ion concentration by setting as 100 the stability at the time when ions were absent , so as to determine the effect of the presence of ions as impurities on the stability . as a result , it was found that the relative stability was stable , as shown in fig1 . the strength and degree of stretching were measured with respect to the compression - treated membranes in swollen as well as methanol - treated membranes and cellulose membranes of the prior art . the results are shown in table 2 , which reveals that the compression - treated membranes display greater values in both strength and degree of stretching than the other two types of membrane . incidentally , as for the cellulose membranes , those that are commercially available were used . although the numerical values of the strength and the standard deviation of the strength are measured values , those in the parentheses are comparative values in which the membrane thickness was uniformly set to the 10 . 3 um of the methanol - treated membrane . measurement was made of the activity yield of the compression - treated membranes and methanol - treated membranes of the prior art , and a comparison was made . the results are shown in table 3 . this table reveals that the activity yield is greater in the case of the compression - treated membranes . table 2__________________________________________________________________________strength and degree of stretching of methanol -, compression - treated fibroin films andcellulose films in swollen standard standard deviation degree of deviation membrane strength of stretching of ( um ) ( kg / mm . sup . 2 ) strength (%) stretching__________________________________________________________________________methanol - 10 . 3 6 . 07 1 . 12 189 . 1 49 . 9treated ( 30 min ) compression - 2 . 00 5 . 57 1 . 29 197 . 2 45 . 6treated ( 28 . 7 ) ( 6 . 65 ) cellulose 35 . 5 27 . 5 1 . 30 85 . 1 0 ( 8 . 10 ) ( 0 . 38 ) __________________________________________________________________________ table 3______________________________________activity yield of fixed biocatalysts obtained bymethanol and compression treatments activity activity average activ - ( u / mg ) yield (%) ity yield______________________________________free glucose 107 . 00 -- -- oxidasemethanol - 5 . 38 5 . 00 4 . 77treated 4 . 88 4 . 56 5 . 07 4 . 74compression - 6 . 21 5 . 80 6 . 01treated 6 . 21 5 . 80 6 . 88 6 . 43______________________________________ above three membranes of example 2 after a lapse of two months upon the compression treatment were respectively installed on a commercially available oxygen electrode ( a model bo manufactured by ishikawa seisakujo k . k .) by means of an o - ring in the same way as in fig9 ( a ), and measurements were made of the response of the sensor when glucose was added gradually by predetermined amounts ( 0 . 27mg ). the amount of glucose added was plotted as the absissas , and the amount of a reduced output was plotted as the ordinates . the results are shown in fig1 ( a ), ( b ), in which an extremely accurate calibration curve was obtained despite the fact that two months had elapsed after the compression treatment . after each membrane was dipped in an aqueous solution ( 0 . 1 m phosphate buffer solution ) of various ph for two hours at 25 ° c ., the stability was measured using a glucose solution of 7 . 0 ph . the results are shown in fig1 ( c ). the compression - treated membrane displayed a remarkably improved level of ph stability in the vicinity of neutrality as compared to the free god membrane . an infra - red analysis ( an ir measurement ) was performed using an ir - 435 ( manufactured by shimazu seisakusho k . k .). the measured results are shown in fig1 . peak intensity at 700cm - 1 of the amide v band increased owing to the compression treatment , and the occurrence of some β - regions was verified . the occurrence of β - regions mentioned above refers to achieving hydrogen bonds between the molecular chains to provide a dense structure , thereby making it difficult for the fixed biocatalyst to flow out . immediately after membrane formation , there were many random coil regions in the domestic regenerated silk fibroin membranes , and these would redissolve if the membranes were immersed in water as is . however , insoluble membranes could be fabricated by increasing crystallization between the molecular chains of the silk fibroin , this being accomplished by mere compressing of the membranes . it should be noted that the biocatalyst is not restricted to glucose oxidase alone , and it is apparent that the present invention can be applied to other biocatalysts as well . it should be noted that the biocatalyst is not restricted to glucose oxidase or pseudomonas fluorescens , and it is apparent that the present invention can be applied to other biocatalysts as well . as many apparently widely different embodiments of the present invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope thereof , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the specific embodiments thereof except as defined in the appended claims .	8
referring to the drawings , in which like reference numerals identify identical or similar elements . fig1 - 31 illustrate preferred embodiments of a needle transport assembly 10 . the needle transport assembly includes a holding apparatus 12 , a calibrating apparatus 14 , and a loading apparatus 16 . referring to fig1 - 7 , a needle transporting apparatus 10 is shown comprising a holding apparatus 12 which includes an upper portion 20 and a lower portion 22 in overlapping relation . the holding apparatus further includes jaw structure 18 adapted for holding up to a multiplicity of needles 13 for transporting . the jaw structure 18 defines the front of the holding apparatus , and the opposite end of the holding apparatus from the front defines the back of the holding apparatus . both the front and back of the holding apparatus 12 are referred to herein for reference . the jaw structure 18 includes an upper section 24 which is integral with the upper portion 20 , and further includes a lower section 26 which is integral with the lower portion 22 . the upper and lower sections 24 , 26 of the jaw structure 18 are movable between open and closed positions . the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 work in concert to hold needles 13 therebetween when in the closed position . once the needles 13 are positioned between the jaws , transport of the needles 13 held in the jaw structure 18 is possible . it also contemplated that the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 may be of a different material than the rest of the holding apparatus . preferably , the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 include needle contacting material 28 where the jaws are intended to contact needles 13 . a needle 13 positioned between the jaw material 28 will remain substantially unchanged or undamaged . the contacting material 28 preferably is an elastomeric material such as , for example , neoprene , rubber or urethanes . the holding apparatus upper portion 20 and the lower portion 22 are spring biased in overlapping relation to each other by springs 30 . the springs 30 are positioned on both sides of the holding apparatus 12 and are attached thereto by pins 32 . the springs 30 normally bias the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 in a closed position ( fig3 ). the holding apparatus 12 further includes an actuation lever 34 for opening the jaw structure 18 by separating the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 . the actuation lever 34 is positioned along a central longitudinal axis extending through the holding apparatus 12 . the lever 34 provides a remote actuating means for moving the jaw section 24 , 26 into open and closed positions . the jaw actuation lever 34 is pivotably mounted on a pivot rod 46 which extends through the upper portion of the holding apparatus . the actuation lever 34 includes a camming portion 36 , shown in fig4 . the camming portion 36 contacts the camming surface 38 , shown in fig6 when the actuation lever 34 is moved towards the front of the holding apparatus 12 . this movement of the actuation lever 34 causes contact between the camming portion 36 and the camming surface 38 to separate the first and second portions 20 , 22 , opening the jaw structure 18 . a locking plate 40 is positioned on the outer side of the upper portion 20 . the locking plate 40 is fastened to the upper portion by fasteners 42 . the locking plate 40 partially overhangs the back end of the upper portion 20 . preferably a cylinder ( not shown ) may be applied to the underside of the overhanging portion of the locking plate 40 to insure that the upper section 24 and the lower section of the jaw structure 18 are in the closed position , as shown in fig3 . a groove 48 extends across the bottom 50 of the lower portion 22 of the holding apparatus 12 . the groove 48 mates with a positioning bar 54 on a mounting structure 56 , shown in fig1 and 10 . a mount 41 is positioned on the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus 12 . the mount is used for moving the upper portion 20 when calibrating the lateral movement of the upper portion 20 with respect to the lower portions 22 , as described below . a notch 52 is positioned in the bottom 50 of the lower portion of the holding apparatus 12 . notch 52 is matable with a member on a mounting structure , such as , for example , the mounting structure 56 shown in fig1 . the notch 52 and mating member encourage positive and fixed positioning of the holding apparatus 12 to a mounting structure . referring to fig6 the upper jaw section 24 of the upper portion 20 mates with an &# 34 ; l &# 34 ; shaped receiving groove 88 towards the front of the upper portion 20 . the lower jaw section 26 of the lower portion 22 mates with an &# 34 ; l &# 34 ; shaped receiving groove 90 towards the front of the lower portion 90 . pins 92 connect the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 within the &# 34 ; l &# 34 ; shaped receiving grooves 88 , 90 . the upper portion 20 further includes an upper axle holding section 58 toward the back of the holding apparatus 12 . the upper axle holding section 58 includes an aperture 60 extending therethrough . the lower portion 22 of the holding apparatus 12 includes an aperture 62 extending through a lower axle holding section 64 which is in axial communication with the aperture 60 of the upper axle holding section 58 . an axle 66 is positioned through the apertures 60 and 62 of the upper and lower axle holding sections 58 , 64 . the axle 66 includes a middle indented portion 68 and an elongated longitudinal slot 70 . on each side of axle 66 are lateral biasing springs 72 and bushings 74 fixedly placed within the aperture 60 of the upper axle holding section 58 . the axle 66 is positioned between the springs 72 and bushings 74 . thus , the upper portion 20 may be moved laterally with respect to the lower portion 22 while being biased in a central location by the lateral biasing springs 72 . a threaded hole 76 is positioned toward the back of the upper portion 20 and receives a tension adjustment pin 78 having a mating threaded portion 79 . the tension adjustment pin 78 includes a ball bearing 80 at its lower end which contacts the indented middle portion 68 of axle 66 . the indented middle portion 68 accommodates the ball bearing 80 to affirmatively bias the upper portion 20 to a central location with respect to lower portion 22 . a set screw 81 locks the tension adjustment pin 78 positioned along the longitudinal slot 70 . the set screw 81 locks the tension adjustment pin 78 in position after the pin 78 is screwed up or down to adjust the tension on the axle 66 . further , axle set screws 86 are positioned in the back of the lower portion 22 for holding the axle 66 in place by contacting the longitudinal slots 70 in the axle 66 . an abutment pin 79 is positioned in a hole 82 in the lower portion 22 . the abutment pin 79 is positioned such that adjustment screws 84 contact the abutment pin 79 when the upper portion 20 is moved laterally in relation to the lower portion 22 . more specifically , since the adjustment screws 84 are connected to the upper portion 20 , each adjustment screw 84 can be positioned to contact the abutment pin 79 at selectable locations of the upper portion 20 . thus , the upper portion 20 can be laterally moved to selectable positions defined by the adjustment screws 84 . thus , needles held between the jaw sections 24 , 26 can be rotated by laterally moving the upper portion 20 relative to the lower portion 22 . the desired angular rotation of the needles 13 is regulated by altering the adjustment screws 84 to arrange the magnitude of lateral motion of the upper portion 20 . referring to fig8 and 9 , the needle transporting apparatus 10 also includes a calibrating apparatus 14 . the calibrating apparatus 14 is dimensioned and configured to accommodate the needle holding apparatus 12 for calibration . specifically , the calibrating apparatus 14 includes a frame 94 having legs 96 such that the calibrating apparatus 14 can be positioned on a work surface 11 or the like . the frame 94 of the calibrating apparatus 14 includes a mounting surface 98 configured and dimensioned for receiving the holding apparatus 12 in a predetermined manner . a calibrating meter 100 is mounted on the frame 94 . the calibrating meter 100 includes a contacting member 102 positioned proximate the mounting surface for contacting the holding apparatus 12 placed thereupon . a calibrating knob 103 is positioned opposite the contacting member 102 for selectively approximating the contacting member 102 towards and away from the holding apparatus 12 positioned on the mounting surface 98 . the calibrating meter 100 visually indicates the relative motion of the contacting member 102 , and thereby , the relative motion of , for example , the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus 12 communicating with the contacting member 102 . the relative motion is preferably measured by the calibrating meter 100 in increments of mils . a curved portion 101 is positioned between the mounting structure 111 and the calibrating meter 100 . an adjustment tool , such as a screw driver or allen key , is guided by the curved portion 101 to meet with the adjustment screws 84 of the holding apparatus 12 . the adjustment screws 84 can then be arranged to set the lateral motion of the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus 12 , as described above . stabilizers 104 , functioning as retaining means , are positioned through a side wall 106 of the frame 94 opposite the calibrating meter 100 . the stabilizers include knobs 105 , threaded portion 107 , and contacting portions 108 opposite the knobs 108 . the contacting portions 108 are positioned against the holding apparatus 12 placed on the mounting surface 98 to secure the holding apparatus 12 in position . a calibrating mechanism 110 is positioned on the frame 94 proximate the calibrating meter 100 . the calibrating mechanism 110 includes a rotatable actuation knob 112 positioned on a mounting structure 111 . a slide member 114 is positioned at least partially within the mounting structure 111 . the actuation knob 112 selectively moves the slide member 114 laterally , that is , towards and away from the side wall 106 . a fastening structure 116 , also functioning as a retaining means or grasping member , includes a knob 118 and a body portion 120 having first and second apertures 122 , 124 . the first aperture 122 is pivotally positioned on pivot mount 126 . the second aperture 124 is removably positioned on mount 41 of the needle holding apparatus 12 . the knob 118 is used to rotate the fastening structure 116 about the pivot mount 126 such that the body portion 120 of the fastening structure 116 can be connected to the mount 41 on the holding apparatus 12 . in operation , the calibrating apparatus 14 may first be used to calibrate the holding apparatus 12 for appropriately rotating needles held in its jaw structure 18 . the calibrating apparatus 14 accommodates the holding apparatus 12 on its mounting surface 98 , as shown in fig9 . the fastening structure 116 is pivoted about the pivot mount 126 to attach the second aperture 124 to the mount 41 on the holding apparatus 12 . the stabilizing knobs 105 are rotated to position the contacting portions 108 against the holding apparatus 12 , thereby , securing the holding apparatus 12 in position on the mounting surface 98 . the calibrating actuation knob 112 may then be turned to move the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus 12 connected to the slide member 114 . the upper portion 20 may be moved laterally in both directions by changing the direction of rotation of the knob 112 . as the upper portion 20 is moved by the slide member 114 , the calibrating knob 103 may be actuated to position the calibrating contacting portion 102 against the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus 12 . the calibrating meter 100 visually displays the incremental movement of the upper portion 20 of the holding apparatus via the placement of the calibrating contacting member 102 . the adjustment screws 84 can then be accessed using a screw driver or the like , guided by the curved portion 101 to access one adjustment screw 84 . the other adjustment screw 84 is accessed for adjustment over the side wall 106 . after the calibration of the holding apparatus 12 is completed by positioning the adjustment screws 84 of the holding apparatus 12 , the stabilizing knobs 104 and the fastening structure 116 can be released by reversing the procedure described above . the holding apparatus 12 can then be removed from the mounting surface 98 of the calibrating apparatus 14 . referring to fig1 - 15 , the needle transporting apparatus includes a loading apparatus 16 for loading needles into the holding apparatus 12 . the loading apparatus 16 includes a frame 130 positioned on the work surface 11 , as shown in fig1 and 11 . the loading apparatus 16 includes a needle receptacle 132 positioned towards one end of the frame 130 , and a loading station 155 positioned distal to the needle receptacle 132 . further , the frame 130 includes a longitudinally extending slot 157 which slidably accomondates the track 134 . the track 134 can be moved in the slot 157 , and removed after being extended through the end of the slot 157 proximate the loading station 155 . the track 134 can then be loaded into the opposite end of the slot 157 to be reloaded with needles 13 . the needle receptacle 132 is dimensioned and configured for accommedating a multiplicity of needles 13 . it is envisioned that the needle receptacle 132 is a preferred embodiment of a storing member or accommodating means for holding needles . the receptacle 132 includes a sloped portion 133 for encouraging the needles 13 through an opening 135 in the receptacle 132 . the receptacle 132 thereby deposits the needles 13 onto the track 134 in a predetermined fashion , as shown in fig1 . referring now to fig1 , the track 134 functions as a movable member for advancing the needles 13 along a predetermined track path from the needle receptacle 132 . the track 134 extends along the frame 130 about a longitudinal axis extending through the frame 130 . the track 134 includes a plurality of equidistant spaced grooves 136 . the grooves 136 are have a generally &# 34 ; v &# 34 ; shaped configuration such that a triangular portion of a needle will mate with the groove 136 . it is also contemplated that grooves having other shapes may be acceptable for mating with alternatively shaped needles or needle stock , such as , a generally &# 34 ; u &# 34 ; shaped groove . the needle receptacle 132 includes a positioning member 138 , which is envisioned as a preferred embodiment of a positioning means , for rotating the needles 13 to the appropriate position to mate with the grooves 136 . the positioning member 138 includes a contacting clement 140 for communicating with needles 13 that are not positioned with the grooves 136 in the appropriate manner . the contacting element 140 contacts the needles 13 and , rotates them until they fit into grooves 136 in the track 134 . an adjustment member 142 includes a rotatable knob 144 and a threaded portion 146 . the adjustment member 142 is connected to the positioning member 138 to elevate and descend the contacting element 140 to an appropriate height above the track 134 . referring back to fig1 , a track actuation mechanism 148 includes a rotatable knob 150 communicating with the track 134 . rotation of the knob 150 moves the track 134 toward the loading station 155 . the actuation mechanism , and track 134 , may both be considered part of an advancing structure for moving the needles 13 in an orderly and predictable fashion to the loading station . an aligning block 152 is positioned along side of the track 134 and has a frontally inclined surface 154 . the inclined surface 154 contacts the needles 13 as they are advanced toward the loading station 155 on the track 134 . the inclined surface substantially insures that the needles 13 are aligned evenly with respect to each other on the track 134 . the needles 13 positioned in the grooves 136 on the track 134 are advanced until situated at the loading station 155 . the loading station 155 includes a retaining structure 156 having a needle contacting portion 158 , shown in fig1 and 15 . the needle contacting portion 158 is substantially non - abrasive and may be composed of , for example , an elastomeric material . the loading station 155 further includes a sloped portion 162 . ( see fig1 and 12 ) the sloped portion 162 allows the holding apparatus 12 positioned on the mounting surface 56 to approach the needles 13 held by the retaining structure 156 . the retaining structure 156 includes an actuation lever 160 which approximates the needle contacting portion 158 onto the needles 13 on the track 134 . the contacting portion 158 thereby holds the needles 13 on the track in their predetermined position in the grooves 136 . referring to fig1 , the loading apparatus includes a mounting structure 56 dimensioned and configured for accommodating the holding apparatus 12 . the mounting structure 56 includes a frame 164 having the mounting structure slidably positioned therein . the mounting structure 56 further includes the positioning bar 54 which mates with the groove 48 in the holding apparatus 12 . the mounting structure 56 is movably positioned on the work surface 11 . the mounting structure 56 slides in a generally orthogonal direction with respect to the loading station 155 . the mounting structure 56 thus is positioned such that the needle holding apparatus 12 , when positioned on the mounting structure 56 , can slide towards the loading station 155 . the needles 13 positioned at the loading station 155 can be placed between the open jaw structure 18 of the holding apparatus 12 . as illustrated in fig1 and 14 , to ensure proper positioning of the holding apparatus 12 when positioning needles 13 in the jaw structure 18 , the mounting structure 56 includes a cylindrical alignment projection 57 . the projection 57 mates with a cylindrical hole 59 in the frame 130 of the loading apparatus 16 . referring to fig1 - 15 , in operation , the loading apparatus 16 and the holding apparatus 12 of the needle transporting apparatus 10 are shown . referring to fig1 , the loading apparatus 16 is shown positioning needles 13 from the needle receptacle 132 into the grooves 136 in the track 134 as the track is moved toward the loading station 155 by the rotation of knob 150 . referring to fig1 , the needles 13 are in position at the loading station 155 . the needle holding apparatus 12 is also in position on the mounting structure 56 . the lever 34 , and thereby the camming portion 36 , are in position to open jaw structure 18 against the biasing nature of the spring 30 . the jaws structure is opened by separating the upper and lower sections 20 and 22 of the holding apparatus 12 . more specifically , the jaw structure 18 is opened by lifting the actuation lever 34 upwardly as shown in fig1 , rotating the lever 34 about pivot rod 46 . the camming portion 36 of actuation lever 34 abuts the camming surface 38 of the lower portion 22 of the holding apparatus 12 , separating the upper and lower portions 20 , 22 in relation to each other . this separation opens the upper and lower jaw sections 24 , 26 against the biasing tension of the spring 30 . referring to fig1 , the needle contacting portion 158 of the retaining structure 156 has been positioned on the needles 13 by moving actuating lever 160 . the needles 13 are thereby retained in their desired position in the grooves 136 of the track 134 . the holding apparatus 12 is then ready to be moved to position the needles 13 between the jaw structure 18 . the needle holding apparatus 12 moves toward the needles 13 in the loading station 155 by sliding the holding apparatus 12 mounted on the slidable mounting structure 56 . the needles 13 are thus positioned between the open jaw structure 18 . when the needles 13 are positioned between the jaw structure 18 the cylinder projection 57 is positioned in the hole 59 ensuring proper alignment of the jaw structure 18 with the needles 13 . referring to fig1 , the jaw structure 18 is closed on the needles 13 by lowering lever 34 . the camming portion 36 thereby ceases to contact the camming surface 38 and the jaws are closed by the tensioning of the springs 30 . the needles 13 are thereby held in the holding apparatus 12 and ready for removal from the loading apparatus 16 . the needles 13 are then released from the retaining structure 156 by actuating lever 160 ( see fig1 and 11 ) to release the needle contacting portion 158 from the needles 13 in the grooves 136 on the track 134 . the needle holding apparatus 12 may then be removed from the mounting structure 56 , and the needles 13 held in the holding apparatus 13 are ready for transporting , for example , to a work or processing station . another embodiment of a needle loading apparatus 166 for use with a needle transporting apparatus is shown in fig1 - 22 . referring to fig1 , a needle loading apparatus is shown which is similar to the previous embodiment of a needle loading apparatus 16 shown in fig1 and 10 - 15 . however , the embodiment of the needle loading apparatus 166 shown in fig1 is substantially automated and includes a rotatable positioning wheel 168 mounted to a wall 169 at axis 171 . the wheel 168 includes a needle contacting portion 170 consisting of a suitable material , such as , the elastomeric materials previously mentioned . the proximity of the wheel 168 to the needles 13 positioned on the track 134 is adjusted by rotatable knob 172 . the wheel 168 is preferably rotated in a counterclockwise direction at a predetermined speed by a motor 174 connected to the wall 169 . the wheel 168 speed is preferably between about 2 and about 20 rpm &# 39 ; s . needle receptacle 176 is essentially identical to the needle receptacle 132 shown in fig1 , however , the needle receptacle 176 shown in fig1 and 17 includes a curved wall 178 for encouraging needles toward opening 180 . referring to fig1 , a first positioning member 182 includes a needle contacting portion 184 . the first positioning member 182 defines part of the opening 180 and is positioned in relation to track 134 such that the needles 13 are located in grooves 136 in the track 134 in a similar manner as with the positioning member 138 shown in fig1 . the proximity of the positioning member 182 contacting portion 184 to the needles 13 is adjusted by knob 186 . knob 186 secures a shaft within a selectable position in slot 188 . an aligning wall 190 is curved for aligning the needles on the track 134 as the needles 13 are moved towards the loading station 192 . the curved aligning wall 190 substantially insures that the needles 13 are aligned evenly with respect to each other on the track 134 , as with the aligning block 152 shown in fig1 . a second positioning member 194 includes a first element 196 having a needle contacting portion 198 and a second element 197 also having a needle contacting portion 198 . the needle contacting portion 198 is preferably of similar material as the contacting portion 184 of the first positioning member 182 . the first and second elements 196 , 197 are biased in an initial position by spring 202 . the spring is connected to pin 200 of pivotably mounted element 203 and post 204 . the first and second elements 196 , 197 are resiliently deflectable such that needles 13 are contacted and moved into the grooves 136 in the track 134 . the height of the contacting portions 198 is adjusted by knob 201 . referring to fig1 , a retaining mechanism 206 includes a body portion 208 having a needle contacting portion 210 and accommodating an actuation pin 212 . the pin 212 is part of a pneumatic cylinder 214 having a shaft 213 . the pneumatic cylinder 214 is preferably controlled by pneumatic interface 215 for selectively extending the shaft 213 and the pin 212 to move the lever 34 on the holding apparatus 12 , shown in fig2 . more specifically , as shown in fig1 , the body portion 208 is pivotably connected at pivot point 216 to the frame 130 of the loading apparatus 166 . the body portion is further pivotably connected at pivot point 218 to pneumatic cylinder 220 . cylinder 220 selectively pivots the body portion 208 about pivot point 216 to lower the contacting portion 210 onto needles 13 . the loading apparatus further includes movable mounting surface 222 which functions essentially the same as mounting surface 56 shown in fig1 . however , the mounting surface 222 shown in fig1 is slidably positioned on guide rods 224 . the mounting surface 222 can be pneumatically actuated to move towards and away from the loading station 192 . the needle track 134 is subdivided into links 226 connected in a continuous loop 227 of links 226 . the track links 226 are rotated about the work surface 11 by motor 228 at a predetermined speed . in operation , referring to fig1 - 21 , the retaining mechanism 206 is in an open position having the needle contacting portion 210 of the body portion 208 out of contact with the needles 13 , and the pneumatic cylinder 220 in a first position . further , the needle holding apparatus 12 is oriented with the jaw structure 18 in an open position . the holding apparatus is positioned on the movable mounting surface 222 in a first position which is removed from the work station 192 . referring to fig1 , the needle contacting portion 210 of the body portion 208 is positioned in engagement with the needles 13 . the body portion 208 is activated by a shaft 221 of the pneumatic cylinder 220 moving to a second position pivoting the body portion about pivot point 216 to position the contacting portion 210 on the needles 13 . the needle holding apparatus 12 is identical to the holding apparatus 12 shown in fig1 - 9 , and 13 - 15 . the jaw structure 18 of the holding apparatus 12 is in an open position . the holding apparatus 12 has been moved towards the needles held in the loading station 192 , until the needles 13 are disposed between the open jaw structure 18 . the holding apparatus has been moved forward via mounting surface 222 advancing on the rods 224 . referring to fig2 , the shaft 213 is fully extended and pin 212 is moved into contact with lever 34 . the contact between the pin 212 and lever 34 pushes the lever 34 downwardly closing the jaw structure 18 on the needles 13 . as shown in fig2 , the needle contacting portion 210 of the retaining mechanism 206 is returned to it initial position by moving shaft 221 of the pneumatic cylinder 220 to its first position . the body portion 208 is thus pivoted about pivot point 216 to release contact between the contacting portion 210 and the needles 13 . the needle holding apparatus 12 can then be returned to its initial position on the mounting surface 222 via rods 224 . the needle holding apparatus 12 may then be lifted off the mounting surface 222 having the needles 13 positioned in its jaw structure 18 and transported , for example , to a work or processing station . referring to fig2 , another embodiment of a positioning means is shown as positioning mechanism 230 . the positioning mechanism 230 is incorporated in the loading apparatus 166 shown in fig1 - 21 . the positioning mechanism 230 includes a rotating cylindrical wheel 232 having a needle contacting surface 234 being of a suitable material , such as , the elastomeric material previously mentioned . the wheel 232 is rotated by shaft 236 which is connected to pulley system 238 including pulley 239 . the belt 240 of the pulley system 238 is driven by a motor ( not shown ) for rotating the shaft 236 and wheel 232 at a predetermined speed . the wheel 232 is rotated in a clock - wise direction to encourage needles not properly positioned for mating with the grooves 136 of the track 134 to reenter the needle receptacle 132 . the rotating speed of the wheel 232 is preferably between about 20 and about 100 . another embodiment of a needle holding apparatus of a needle transporting apparatus is shown in fig2 - 31 . the holding apparatus 244 , in some respects , is similar to the holding apparatus 12 shown in fig1 - 7 . referring to fig2 and 24 , the holding apparatus 244 includes an upper portion 246 , middle portion 247 , and a lower portion 248 in overlapping relation . the upper portion 246 includes a lever 252 having a camming surface 254 . the camming surface 254 selectively communicates with a sleeve portion 256 for actuating the lower section 262 of the first jaw structure 258 . the first jaw structure 258 is positioned on the distal end of the holding apparatus 244 and between the upper and middle portions 246 , 247 . a needle contacting material 264 is positioned on the upper section 266 of the first jaw structure 258 for working in concert with needle grooves 268 of the lower section 262 . the second jaw structure 260 is connected to the middle portion 247 of the holding apparatus 244 . the second jaw structure 260 includes a frame 280 defining an upper jaw section 281 having needle contacting material 282 . the second jaw structure further includes lower jaw section 284 having grooves 285 in a needle contacting portion 286 . as shown in fig2 , the middle portion 247 is dimensioned and configured to accommodate the upper portion 246 . the middle portion 247 includes an aperture 270 for accepting a camming shaft 272 . the camming shaft 272 includes a camming end 274 having first and second cams 276 , 278 . the frame 280 and the lower jaw section 284 are mounted on the middle portion 247 such that the camming end 274 of the camming shaft 272 is positioned in a hole 288 in the lower section 284 and a corresponding hole 290 in the frame 280 . the second jaw structure 260 is positioned between the middle portion 247 and a lock plate 292 thereby securing the second jaw section 260 in place . as shown in fig2 , the middle and upper portions 247 and 246 are positioned on the lower portion 248 . the lower portion includes a hole 294 for accommodating a gear shaft 296 having gear teeth 298 . the lower portion 248 further includes a hole 300 for rotatably accommodating a gear 302 . the gear 302 is connected to the opposite end of the camming shaft 272 with respect to the camming end 274 . the gear teeth 298 of the gear shaft 296 and the gear 302 are in mating relation for laterally moving frame 280 downwardly , and the lower section 284 upwardly . the interaction of the upper section 281 of the frame 280 and the contacting portion 286 of the lower section 284 provides selectable opening and closing of the second jaw structure 260 . spring 306 is mounted in hole 308 in the middle portion 247 . the spring 306 contacts the lower section 262 of the first jaw structure 258 thereby biasing the lower jaw section 262 in a closed relation with the upper jaw section 266 . camming surface 254 of lever 252 is rotatable about pivot pin 253 and opens the first jaw structure 258 against the biasing of the spring 306 when the camming surface 254 in positioned against the sleeve portion 256 . referring to fig2 and 26 , upper portion 246 includes a rectangular notch 304 . the notch mates with an approximating member to shift the upper portion 246 laterally with respect to middle portion 247 and lower portion 248 . this lateral shifting rolls the needles 13 a predetermined amount while being held in the grooves 268 of the first jaw structure 258 . two mounting indentations 303 are positioned on the bottom of the holding apparatus 244 , as shown in fig2 . the indentations 303 provide positive positioning of the holding apparatus 244 on a mounting surface . referring to fig2 , an enlarged view is shown of the first and second jaw structures 258 , 260 and their corresponding grooves 268 and 285 . the grooves 268 , 285 are aligned to position needles 13 continuously between the first and second jaw structures 258 , 260 . the first jaw structure 258 includes generally rectangular shaped grooves 268 permitting uniform rotation of the needles 13 having a circular shank 15 . the second jaw structure 260 includes generally &# 34 ; v &# 34 ; shaped grooves 285 . the &# 34 ; v &# 34 ; shaped grooves 285 securely mate with triangularly shaped needles 13 to insure correct orientation of the needle 13 . referring to fig2 and 29 , the needle holding apparatus 244 is in an initial position having both first and second jaw structures 258 and 260 in an open position , as shown in fig2 . the camming surface 254 is positioned against the sleeve portion 256 to open the first jaw structure 258 . further , as best seen in fig2 , the camming end 274 of the camming shaft is positioned in the holes 288 and 290 such that the frame 280 and contacting portion 286 are distal from one another . rotation of the camming shaft 272 manipulates the second jaw structure 260 as indicated by arrows 267 . in operation , referring to fig3 and 31 , the first jaw structure 258 is in a closed position since lower section 262 is in contact with upper jaw section 266 and holding a needle 13 therebetween . the second jaw structure 260 is in an open position . the needles 13 held in the first jaw structure 258 are rotated by laterally moving the upper portion 246 . a moving beam 310 is positioned in the rectangular notch 304 and is used as an approximating member . the moving beam 310 selectively moves the upper portion 246 laterally to rotate the needles 13 in the grooves 285 , 268 a specified amount . the needle 13 rotation is caused by the frictional contact of the upper jaw section 266 contacting material 264 on the needles 13 held in the grooves 268 . after the needles 13 have been angularly rotated the desired amount , the second jaw structure 260 may be closed on the needles 13 further securing of the needles 13 in their specified position in the holding apparatus 244 . the first and second camming sections 276 , 278 interact with the respective lower jaw 284 and the frame 280 to move the frame down , and the lower jaw up . this action closes the second jaw structure 260 when the needles 13 are held securely between the upper jaw section 266 contacting material 282 and the grooves 285 in the contacting portion 286 . the camming end 274 is activated by moving gear shaft 296 laterally to engage gear 302 , thereby , rotating camming shaft 272 . the gear shaft 296 is moved by actuation rods 312 positioned on both sides of the holding apparatus ( only one is shown in fig3 ). the actuation rods 312 rotate camming shaft 272 in either direction by actuating the corresponding side of the gear shaft 296 to achieve the desired rotational movement of camming shaft 272 . once both the first and second jaw structures 258 , 260 are in a closed position , the needles 13 are thereby secured in the holding apparatus 244 . the needles may be then be securely transported to a work or processing station using the holding apparatus 244 . while the present invention is described herein with respect to needles , it should be understood that the devices of this invention may be employed to hold and / or transport any elongated workpiece , including , but not limited to , needle blanks . while the invention has been particularly shown , and described with reference to the preferred embodiments , it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications and changes in form and detail may be made therein without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention . accordingly , modifications such as those suggested above , but not limited thereto , are to be considered within the scope of the invention .	1
the present invention is a therapeutic method for treating angina in mammals . the method utilizes a class of antagonists which have been previously prepared and evaluated as effective aii receptor antagonists . examples of suitable angiotensin ii receptor antagonists include , but are not limited to , the following : substituted imidazoles of the formula ( i ), which are described in u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 746 , 262 , filed aug . 14 , 1991 : r 1 is adamantyl , phenyl , biphenyl , or naphthyl , with each aryl group being unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from cl , br , f , i , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , a - co 2 r 7 , tetrazol - 5 - yl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , hydroxy , sc 1 — c 6 alkyl , . so 2 nhr 7 , nhso 2 r 7 so 3 h , conr 7 r 7 , cn , so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nhso 2 r 7 , po ( or 7 ) 2 , nr 7 r 7 , nr 7 coh , nr 7 coc 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 7 con ( r 7 ) 2 , nr 7 cow , w wo 2 w ; r 2 is c 2 — c 10 alkyl , c 3 — c 10 alkenyl , c 3 — c 10 alkynyl , c 3 — c 6 cycloalkyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , cl , br , f , i , hydroxy , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , nr 7 r 7 , co 2 r 7 , cn , conr 7 r 7 , w , tetrazol - 5 - yl , nr 7 coc 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 7 cow , sc 1 — c 6 alkyl , so 2 w , or so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl ; x is a single bond , s , nr 7 , or o ; r 3 is hydrogen , cl , br , f , i , cho , hydroxymethyl , coor 7 , conr 7 r 7 , no 2 , w , cn , nr 7 r 7 , or phenyl ; r 4 and rs are independently hydrogen , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , thienyl - y -, furyl - y -, pyrazolyl - y -, imidazolyl - y -, pyrrolyl - y -, triazolyl - y -, oxazolyl - y -, isoxazolyl - y -, thiazolyl - y -, pyridyl - y -, or tetrazolyl - y -, except that r 4 and r 5 are not both selected from hydrogen and c 1 — c 6 alkyl and each heterocyclic ring is unsubstituted or substituted by c 1 — c 6 alkyl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , cl , br , f , i , nr 7 r 7 , co 2 r 7 , so 2 nhr 7 , so 3 h , or conr 7 r 7 , oh , no 2 , w , so 2 w , sc 1 — c 6 alkyl , so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 7 coh , nr 7 cow , or nr 7 coc 1 — c 6 alkyl ; y is a single bond , o , s , or c 1 — c 6 alkyl which is straight or branched or optionally substituted by phenyl or benzyl , wherein each of the aryl groups is unsubstituted or substituted by halo , no 2 , cf 3 , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , cn , or co 2 r 7 ; z is a single bond , vinyl , — ch 2 — o — ch 2 —, methylene optionally substituted by c 1 — c 6 alkyl , one or two benzyl groups , thienylmethyl , or furylmethyl , or — c ( o ) nhchr 9 -, wherein r 9 is h , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , phenyl , benzyl , thienylmethyl , or furylmethyl ; a is —( ch 2 ) m —, — ch ═ ch —, — o ( ch 2 ) n —, or — s ( ch 2 ) n —; each r 7 independently is hydrogen , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , or ( ch 2 ) m - phenyl , wherein m is 0 - 4 ; and r 8 is hydrogen , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , or 2 - di ( c 1 — c 6 alkyl )- amino - 2 - oxoethyl ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . particularly preferred compounds are ( e )- 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 4 - carboxyphenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 -( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid and ( e )- 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{ 4 - carboxynaphth - 1 - yl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 -( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . the most preferred compound of this invention is ( e )- 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 4 - carboxyphenyl ) methyl }- 1 - h - imidazolyl - 5 - yl ]- 2 -( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid methanesulfonate . the compounds of formula ( i ) are prepared following the methods described in european patent publication number ep 0 403 159 , published on dec . 19 , 1990 . substituted imidazoles , which are described in u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 746 , 024 , filed aug . 14 , 1991 , are prepared following the methods described in european publication number ep 0 403 158 , published on dec . 19 , 1990 . preferred compounds included within the scope of this class of aii receptor antagonists are : substituted imidazoles , which are described in u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 590 , 207 , filed sep . 28 , 1990 , are prepared following the methods described in european publication number ep 0 425 211 , published on may 2 , 1991 . preferred compounds included within the scope of this class of aii receptor antagonists are : substituted imidazoles , which are described in u . s . ser . no . 07 / 590 , 206 filed , sep . 28 , 1990 , are prepared following the methods described in european publication number ep 0 427 463 , published on may 15 , 1991 . substituted imidazoles , which are described in u . s . ser . no . 07 , 621 , 491 , filed nov . 30 , 1990 , are prepared following the methods described in european publication number ep 0 437 103 , published jul . 17 , 1991 . preferred compounds included within the scope of the class of aii receptor antagonist are n -[{ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl } methyl - carbonyl ]- l - phenylalanine and n -[( 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl } methylcarbonyl ]- l -( 2 - thienyl ) alanine ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . r 1 is adamantyl , or phenyl , biphenyl , or naphthyl , with each aryl group being unsubstituted or substituted by one of three substituents selected from cl , br , f , i , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , co 2 r 7 , tetrazol - 5 - yl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , hydroxy , sc 1 — c 6 alkyl , so 2 nr 7 r 7 , nhso 2 r 7 , so 3 h , conr 7 r 7 , cn , so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl , or c n f 2n + 1 ; r 2 is c 2 — c 10 alkyl unsubstituted or substituted by co 2 h , oh , or nr 7 r 7 , c 3 — c 10 alkenyl , c 3 — c 10 alkynyl , c 3 — c 6 cycloalkyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , cl , br , f , i , hydroxy , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , nr 7 r 7 , co 2 r 7 , cn , or conr 7 r 7 ; r 3 is hydrogen , cl , br , f , i , cho , hydroxymethyl , coor 7 , conr 7 r 7 no 2 , or c n f 2n + 1 ; r 4 is co 2 r 7 , conr 7 r 7 , or tetrazol - 5 - yl ; r 5 is hydrogen , c 1 — c 8 alkyl , c 3 — c 6 cycloalkyl , ( ch 2 ) 0 - 4 phenyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 3 ch - diphenyl wherein each phenyl group independently is unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , cl , br , f , i , hydroxy , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 7 r 7 , co 2 r 7 , or conr 7 r 7 ; each r 7 independently is hydrogen , c 1 — c 4 alkyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 4 phenyl ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . preferred compounds included within the scope of formula ( vi ) are 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - propylthio - n - butyrylhistidine and 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl ]- 2 - n - butyl - n - butyrylhistidine ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . compounds of formula ( ii ) are prepared as illustrated by example 1 . r 1 is adamanthylmethyl , or phenyl , biphenyl , or naphthyl , with each aryl group being unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from cl , br , f , i , c 1 - 6 alkyl , nitro , co 2 r 8 , tetrazol - 5 - yl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , hydroxy , sc 1 - 4 alkyl , so 2 nhr 8 , nhso 2 r 8 , so 3 h , conr 8 r 8 , cn , so 2 c 1 - 4 alkyl , or c n f 2n + 1 , wherein n is 1 - 3 ; r 2 is c 2 - 10 alkyl , c 3 - 10 alkenyl , c 3 - 10 alkynyl , c 3 - 6 cycloalkyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 - 6 alkyl , nitro , cl , br , f , i , hydroxy , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , nr 8 r 8 , co 2 r 8 , cn or conr 8 r 8 ; r 3 is hydrogen , cl , br , f , i , cho , hydroxymethyl , co 2 r 8 , no 2 , or c n f 2n + 1 , wherein n is 1 - 3 ; r 5 is c 3 - 6 alkyl , c 3 - 6 alkenyl , phenyl - y -, 2 - or 3 - thienyl - y -, 2 - or 3 - furyl - y -, 2 -, 3 -, or 4 - pyridyl - y -, tetrazolyl - y -, triazolyl - y -, imidazolyl - y -, pyrazolyl - y -, thiazolyl - y -, or oxazolyl - y -, with each aryl ring being unsubstituted or substituted by c 1 - 6 alkyl , cl , br , f , i , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , nr 8 r 8 , co 2 r 8 , or conr 8 r 8 ; y is a single bone or c 1 - 6 alkyl which is branch or unbranched ; r 6 is co 2 r 8 , conr 8 r 8 , or tetrazol - 5 - yl ; r 7 is h , co 2 r 8 , or c 1 - 6 alkyl ; and each r 8 independently is hydrogen , c 1 - 6 alkyl , or ( ch 3 ) 0 - 4 phenyl ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof a preferred compound included within the scope of formula ( vii ) is 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 - benzylpropanoic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . compounds of formula ( iii ) are prepared as illustrated by example 2 . substituted imidazoles of the formula ( iv ) which are described in u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 621 , 188 , filed nov . 30 , 1990 : r 1 is adamanthylmethyl , or phenyl , biphenyl , or naphthyl , with each aryl group being unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from cl , br , f , i , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , co 2 r 5 , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , hydroxy , sc 1 — c 6 alkyl , so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl , tetrazol - 5 - yl , so 2 nhr 5 , nhso 2 r 5 , so 3 h , po ( or 5 ) 2 , conr 5 r 5 , cn , nr 5 r 5 , nr 5 coh , nr 5 coc 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 5 con ( r 5 ) 2 , nr 5 cow , so 2 w , or w ; r 2 is c 2 — c 10 alkyl , c 3 — c 10 alkenyl , ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 — c 3 - 6 cycloalkyl , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nitro , cl , br , f , i , hydroxy , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , tetrazol - 5 - yl , nr 5 r 5 , co 2 r 5 , cn , conr 5 r 5 , w , nr 5 coh , nr 5 coc 1 — c 6 - alkyl , nr 5 cow , so 2 w , so 2 c 1 — c 6 alkyl , or sc 1 — c 6 alkyl ; x is a single bond , s , nr 5 , or o ; r 3 is hydrogen , cl , br , f , i , cho , hydroxymethyl , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , nr 5 r 5 , co 2 r 5 , conr 5 r 5 no 2 , cn , phenyl , or w ; r 4 is co 2 r 5 , conr 5 r 5 , or tetrazol - 5 - yl ; z is hydrogen , cl , br , f , i , c 1 — c 6 alkyl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , hydroxy , cn , no 2 , co 2 r 5 , cor 5 r 5 , w , phenyl - y -, naphthyl - y -, thienyl - y -, furyl - y -, pyrazolyl - y -, imidazolyl - y -, thiazolyl - y -, tetrazolyl - y -, pyrrolyl - y -, triazolyl - y -, oxazolyl - y -, or isoxazolyl - y -, with each aryl or heteroaryl group being unsubstituted or substituted by c 1 — c 6 alkyl , c 1 — c 6 alkoxy , cl , br , f , i , co 2 r 5 , hydroxy , no 2 , cn , conr 5 r 5 , or w ; y is a single bond or c 1 — c 6 alkyl , which is straight or branched ; each r 5 independently is h or c 1 — c 6 alkyl ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . a preferred compound included within the scope of formula ( iv ) is 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( ( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . compounds of formula ( iv ) are prepared as illustrated by example 3 . r 1 is — c ( o ) nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - aryl , — c ( o ) nh — ch ( y )— ch 2 ) n - heteroaryl , or phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from cl , br , f , i , c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , oh , cn , no 2 , co 2 r 4 , tetrazol - 5 - yl , conr 4 r 4 , so 3 h , c m f 2m + 1 , sc 1 - 6 alkyl , or so 2 c 1 - 6 alkyl ; r 2 is hydrogen , c 2 - 10 alkyl , c 3 - 10 alkenyl , c 3 - 6 - cycloalkyl , c m f 2m + 1 , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 8 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by one to three substituents selected from c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , cl , br , f , i , oh , no 2 , c m f 2m + 1 , co 2 r 4 , or nr 4 r 4 ; r 3 is —( ch 2 ) n — y , — ch ═ cy —( ch 2 ) n - aryl , — ch ═ cy —( ch 2 ) n - heteroaryl , —( ch 2 ) n — c ( o )— nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - aryl , —( ch 2 ) n — c ( o )— nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n heteroaryl , —( ch 2 ) n heteroaryl , —( ch 2 ) m — nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - aryl or —( ch 2 ) m — nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - heteroaryl , when r 1 is an optionally substituted phenyl group ; or h when r 1 is — c ( o ) nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - aryl or — c ( o ) nh — ch ( y )—( ch 2 ) n - heteroaryl ; x is cl , br , f . i , c m f 2m + 1 , c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , oh , o - phenyl , co 2 r 4 , tetrazol - 5 - yl , cn , or ( ch 2 ) 0 - 4 phenyl unsubstituted or substituted by cl , br , f , i , c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , oh , c m f 2m + 1 , cn , co 2 r 4 , no 2 , or nr 4 r 4 ; aryl is phenyl , biphenyl , or naphthyl wherein each aryl group is unsubstituted or substituted by c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , cl , br , f , i , oh , no 2 , cf 3 , co 2 r 4 , or nr 4 r 4 ; heteroaryl is 2 - or 3 - thienyl , 2 -, or 3 - furanyl , 2 -, 3 -, or 4 - pyridyl , pyrimidyl , imidazolyl , thiazolyl , triazolyl , or tetrazolyl wherein each heteroaryl group is unsubstituted or substituted by c 1 - 6 alkyl , c 1 - 6 alkoxy , cl , br , f , i , oh , no 2 , cf 3 , co 2 r 4 , or nr 4 r 4 ; each r 4 independently is h or c 1 - 6 alkyl ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . a preferred compound included within the scope of formula ( v ) is 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 4 - carboxyphenyl ) methyl - 5 - chloro - 1h - benzimidazole - 7 - carboxylic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . compounds of formula ( v ) are prepared following the methods described in patent cooperation treaty publication number wo 91 / 16313 , published oct . 31 , 1991 . formula ( v ) compounds are prepared as illustrated by example 4 . the above descriptions on pages 2 - 11 of classes of aii receptor antagonists for use in the present invention were taken from the noted patent applications and publications . reference should be made to such patent applications and publications for their full disclosure , the entire disclosure of each of which is incorporated herein by reference . the following angiotensin ii receptor antagonists are also included within the scope of the instant invention . since it is contemplated that any aii receptor antagonist will possess the novel utility herein described , the list below does not limit the scope of the present invention . reference citing aii receptor aii analog * blocking activity sar 1 ala 8 clin . sci . 57 : 71 , 1979 sar 1 ile 8 endocrinology 107 ( 5 ): 1365 , 1980 succ 1 val 5 phenylgly 8 clin . sci . mol . med . 51 : 4305 , 1976 desasp 1 ile 8 am . j . physiol . 236 ( 3 ): f252 , 1976 sar 1 thr 8 clin . sci . mol . med . 51 : 3855 , 1976 sar 1 cys - me 8 j . cardiovasc . pharm . 5 : 1025 , 1983 sar 1 tyr - me 4 life sci . 34 : 317 , 1983 gly 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 121 , 1979 ile 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 121 , 1979 leu 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 121 , 1979 sar 1 leu 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 121 , 1979 desasp 1 leu 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 121 , 1979 sar 1 me - ala 7 ile 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 763 , 1979 sar 1 dl - nipecotamide 7 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 763 , 1979 ile 8 sar 1 sar 7 ile 8 can j . physiol pharm . 57 : 763 , 1979 8 - l - ala j . pharm . pharmacol . 32 : 232 , 1980 met 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 thr 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 o - me thr 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 n - me ile 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 n - me phe 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 sar 1 sar 7 leu 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 sar 1 sar 7 thr ( me ) r j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 sar 1 sar 7 dlaile 8 j . med . chem . 22 ( 9 ): 1147 , 1979 meile 1 thr 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 me 2 gly 1 thr 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 gdnac 1 thr 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 desasp 1 thr 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 sar 1 ser ( me ) 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 sar 1 thr 8 j . med . chem . 20 ( 2 ): 253 , 1977 sar 1 thr ( me ) 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 measpnh 2 1 ile 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 metyr 4 ile 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 meile 5 ile 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 meile 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 meile 5 meile 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 thr ( o —/— me ) 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 met 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 sar 1 ser 8 j . med . chem . 19 ( 2 ): 244 , 1976 ile 5 ala 8 j . med . chem . 13 : 181 , 1970 ile 5 , 8 -( 3 - amino - 4 - j . med . chem . 13 : 181 , 1970 phenyl ) butyric acid asn 1 ala 8 circ . res . 29 : 664 , 1971 sar 1 cys ( me ) 8 circ . res . 46 : 720 , 1980 phe 4 tyr 8 proc . nat acad . sci . 67 : 1624 , 1970 octanoylleu 8 j . med . chem . 20 : 898 , 1977 cys 8 cir . res . 31 : 862 , 1972 phe 4 tyr 8 cir . res . 31 : 862 , 1972 desasp 1 phe 4 tyr 8 cir . res . 31 : 862 , 1972 para - flourophe 4 cir . res . 31 : 862 , 1972 para - fluorophe 8 cir . res . 31 : 862 , 1972 other classes of aii receptor antagonists are disclosed in the following : sipos et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 751 , 404 , issued aug . 7 , 1973 . a particularly preferred compound in this class of aii receptor antagonists is sar - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - β - ala - oh which is also referred to as saralasin . regoli et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 907 , 762 , issued sep . 23 , 1975 . examples of suitable compounds within this class are asp - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - val - oh and asp - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - α - amino - n - butyric acid . nyeki et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 388 , 304 , issued jun . 14 , 1983 . compounds disclosed in this patent include sar - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - ile - methyl ester and hydroxyacetyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - thr - methyl ester . the same or similar compounds are also disclosed in european patent no . 34 , 259 . sipos et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 886 , 134 issued may 27 , 1975 . examples of compounds of this class are sar - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - ala - oh , ser - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - ala - oh , and asn - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - d - leu - oh . kisfaludy et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 179 , 433 , issued dec . 18 , 1979 . examples of this class of compounds include aminooxyacetyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - leu - oh and d - α - aminooxypropionyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - leu - oh . hallinan et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 204 , 991 , issued may 27 , 1980 . see also west german offenlegungschrift no . 2846200 ( chemical abstracts , vol . 91 , abstract no . 74989d ). kisfaludy et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 209 , 442 , issued jun . 24 , 1980 . examples include hydroxyacetyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - leu - oh , hydroxyacetyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - ala - oh , and α - hydroxypropionyl - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - ile - oh . nyeki et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 330 , 532 , issued may 18 , 1982 . exemplary compounds of this class are sar - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - lac , sar - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - lac ( oh 2 h 5 ), and sar - arg - val - tyr - ile - his - pro - 2 - hydroxy - 3 - methylvaleric acid . furukawa et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 340 , 598 issued jun . 20 , 1982 . examples include 1 - benzyl - 4 - chloro - 2 - phenylimidazole - 5 - acetamide , 1 - benzyl - 2 - n - butyl - 4 - chloroimidazole - 5 - acetamide , and 1 - benzyl - 2 - n - butyl - 5 - chloroimadazole - 4 - acetic acid . furukawa et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 355 , 040 , issued oct . 19 , 1982 . examples include 1 -( 2 - chlorobenzyl )- 2 - n - butyl - 4 - chloroimidazole - 5 - acetic acid and 1 - benzyl - 4 - chloro - 2 -( 4 - chloro - 3 , 5 - dinitrophenyl ) imidazole - 5 - acetic acid . furukawa , et al ., in european patent publications no . 103 , 647 , published mar . 28 , 1984 . a preferred compound included within the scope of this class of aii receptor antagonists is 4 - chloro - 1 -( 4 - hydroxy - 3 - methylbenzyl )- 2 - phenylimidazole - 5 - acetic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . carini et al ., in european patent publication no . 252 , 310 , published jan . 20 , 1998 and u . s . application ser . no . 50341 filed may 22 , 1987 . preferred compounds included within this class of aii receptor antagonists are 2 - n - butyl - 4 - chloro - 1 -[( 2 ′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 5 -( hydroxymethyl ) imidazole and 2 - n - butyl - 4 - chloro - 1 -[ 2 ′-( carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 5 -( hydroxymethyl )- imidazole ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . blankley et al ., in european patent publication no . 243 , 637 , published nov . 19 , 1987 and u . s . application ser . no . 847067 , filed apr . 1 , 1986 . preferred compounds included within the scope of this class of aii receptor antagonists are 1 -( 2 - phenylethyl )- 5 - phenylacetyl - 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 - tetrahydro - 1h - imidazo [ 4 , 5 - c ] pyridine - 6 - carboxylic acid and 1 -( 4 - amino - 3 - methylphenyl ) methyl - 5 - diphenylacetyl - 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 - tetrahydro - 1h - imidazo [ 4 , 5 - c ] pyridine - 6 - carboxylic acid ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . carini et al ., in european patent publication no . 323 , 841 , published jul . 12 , 1989 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 279 , 1983 , filed dec . 6 , 1988 . preferred compounds included in this class of aii receptor antagonists are 5 - n - propyl - 1 -[( 2 ′- carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ] pyrrole - 2 - carboxylic acid , 3 - methoxymethyl - 5 - n - propyl - 4 -[( 2 ′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 1 , 2 , 4 - triazole , and 3 - methoxymethyl - 5 - n - butyl - 1 -[ 2 ′- carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ] pyrazole ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . carini , et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 880 , 804 , issued nov . 14 , 1989 . preferred compounds included within this class of aii receptor antagonists are 2 - n - butyl - 1 -[( 2 ′- carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 5 - hydroxymethylbenzimidazole and 2 - n - butyl - 1 -[( 2 ′- carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 6 - hydroxymethylbenzimidazole ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . carini , et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 916 , 129 , issued apr . 10 , 1990 . a preferred compound included within this class of aii receptor antagonists if 5 -[ 4 -( 3 -( n - iso - propylamino ) hydroxypropoxy ) indole - 2 - carboxamidomethyl ]- 2 - n - butyl - 1 -[( 2 ′- carboxybiphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 4 - chloroimidazole or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . rosenberg , et al ., u . s . pat . no . 4 , 857 , 507 , issued aug . 15 , 1989 . examples include boc - phe - leu amide of ( 45 )- 3 - oxo - 4 - amino - 2 , 2 - difluoro - 1 - isopropyl - mercapto - 5 - cyclohexylpentane and boc - phe - leu amide of ( 3r , 4s , ez )- 3 - hydroxy - 4 - amino - 2 - fluoro - 1 - isopropyl - sulfonyl - 5 - cyclohexyl - 1 - pentene ; or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . wissmann et al . u . s . pat . no . 4 , 013 , 791 , issued mar . 22 , 1977 . an example of such compounds is succinamoyl - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - phegly - oh where phegly - oh is a l - c - phenylglycine residue . bumpus et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 923 , 769 , issued dec . 2 , 1975 . bumpus et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 923 , 770 , issued dec . 2 , 1975 . bumpus et al . u . s . pat . no . 3 , 923 , 771 , issued dec . 2 , 1975 . bumpus et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 925 , 345 , issued dec . 9 , 1975 . bumpus et al ., u . s . pat . no . 3 , 976 , 770 , issued aug . 24 , 1976 . wille u . s . pat . no . 3 , 915 , 948 , issued oct . 28 , 1975 . an example of an aii receptor included in this reference is sar - arg - val - tyr - val - his - pro - oh lifer , et al , european patent publication number ep 0 438 869 , published jul . 31 , 1991 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 044 , 456 , filed nov . 30 , 1989 . a preferred compound of this class of aii receptor antagonists is α - hexyl - 4 -[( 2 - carboxy - 3 - hydroxybenzoyl ) amino ]- 1h - imidazole - 1 - acetic acid ethyl ester or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt or solvate thereof . chakravarty , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 401 030 , published dec . 5 , 1990 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 522 , 662 , filed may 16 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 2 - n - butyl - 3 -( 2 ′- tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl06 , 7 - dihydroimidazo [ 4 , 5 - e ][ 1 , 4 ] diazepine - 8 ( 3h )- one or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . chakravarty , et al , european patent publication number ep 0 400 974 , published dec . 5 , 1990 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 516 , 286 , filed may 4 , 1990 . an example included within the scope of this class of aii receptor antagonists is 5 , 7 - dimethyl - 2 - ethyl - 3 -( 2 ′-( tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl - 3h - imidazo [ 4 , 5 - b ] pyridine or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . chakravarty , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 400 835 , published dec . 5 , 1990 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 504 , 441 , filed apr . 4 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 4 , 6 - dimethyl - 2 - ethyl - 1 -[ 2 -( tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ] methylbenzimidazole or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . ashton , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 409 332 , published jan . 23 , 1991 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 503 , 352 , filed apr . 2 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 3 - n - butyl - 4 -[ 4 -( 2 - carboxy - benzamido ) benyl ]- 5 -( 2 - methylbenzylthio )- 4 - 1 , 2 , 4 - triazole or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . greenlee , at al ., european patent publication number ep 0 407 102 , published jan . 9 , 1991 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 516 , 502 , filed apr . 25 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 2 - n - butyl - 1 , 5 - dihydro - 4 , 5 - dimethyl - 1 -[( 2 ′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl }( 1 , 1 - biphenyl }- 4 - yl ) methyl ]- pyrrolo [ 3 , 4d ] imidazole or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . carini , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 324 377 , published jul . 19 , 1989 and u . s . application ser . no . 07 / 279 , 194 , filed dec . 6 , 1988 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 2 - n - propyl - 4 - pentafluoroethyl - 1 -[ 2 ′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ] imidazole - 5 - carboxylic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . oku , et al , european patent publication number ep 0 3426 021 , published may 8 , 1991 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 2 - n - butyl - 7 - methyl - 3 -[( 2 -( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ] methyl ]- 3h - imidazo [ 4 , 5 - b ] pyridine or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . roberts , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 412 848 , published feb . 13 , 1991 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 2 - methyl - 4 -( 2 ′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methoxy ] quinoline or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . roberts , et al ., patent cooperation treaty application publication number wo 91 / 07404 , published may 30 , 1991 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists included 2 - ethyl - 4 -[( 2 -′-( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methoxy - 1 , 5 - naphthyridine or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . roberts , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 399 732 , published nov . 28 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 4 -[( 2 - n - butyl - 1h - benzimidazol - 1 - yl ) methyl - n - phenylsulphonlybenazmide or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . miyake , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 420 237 , published mar . 3 , 1991 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 7 - methyl - 2 - n - propyl - 3 -[( 2 ′( 1h - tetrazol - 5 - yl ) biphenyl - 4 - yl ) methyl ]- 3 - h - imidazo [ 4 , 5 - b ] or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . narr , et al ., european patent publication number ep 0 392 317 , published nov . 17 , 1990 . a preferred embodiment of this class of aii receptor antagonists includes 4 ′[( 6 - n - butanoylamino - 2 - n - butyl - benzimidazol - 1 - yl ) methyl ] biphenyl - 2 - carboxylic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof . the above descriptions of classes of aii antagonists for use in the present invention were taken from pending patent applications , noted patents , and publications or from abstracts thereof . reference should be made to such patents and publications themselves for their full disclosures of such classes and specific compounds within such classes , the entire disclosure of such patents and publications being incorporated herein by reference . furthermore , examples 1 - 4 teach how to make compounds encompassed by the generic formulae of ( ii )-( v ). many aii antagonist are known in the art and may be prepared by known methods or by variations thereof . certain aii antagonists employed in the invention may exists in isomeric form . this invention includes all such isomers both in pure form and admixture , including racemic mixtures and their pharmaceutically acceptable salts . angiotensin ii antagonist activity is assessed by in vitro methods . in vitro antagonist activity is determined by the ability of the compounds to compete with 125 i - angiotensin ii for binding to vascular angiotensin ii receptors and by their ability to antagonize the contractile response to angiotensin ii in the isolated rabid aorta . for the purposes of the present invention the preferred aii antagonists are compounds which are capable of inhibiting the action of aii by at least 50 % at a concentration of 1 mm or less , and especially preferred aii antagonists are compounds which are capable of inhibiting the action of aii by at least 50 % at a concentration of 25 nm or less when tested by the following standard methods . the radioligand binding assay is a modification of a method previously described in detail ( gunther et al ., circ . res . 47 : 278 , 1980 ). a particular fraction from rat mesenteric arteries is incubated in tris buffer with 80 pm of 125 i - angiotensin ii with or without angiotensin ii antagonists for 1 hour at 25 ° c . the incubation is terminated by rapid filtration and receptor bound 125 i - angiotensin ii trapped on the filter is quantitated with a gamma counter . the potency of angiotensin ii antagonists is expressed as the ic 50 which is the concentration of antagonists needed to displace 50 % of the total specifically bound angiotensin ii . the ability of the compounds to antagonize angiotensin ii induced vasoconstriction is examined in the rabbit aorta . ring segments are cut from the rabbit thoracic aorta and suspended in organ baths containing physiological salt solution . the ring segments are mounted over metal supports and attached to force displacement transducers which are connected to a recorder . cumulative concentration response curves to angiotensin ii are performed in the absence of antagonist or following a 30 - minute incubation with antagonist . antagonist dissociation constants ( k b ) are calculated by the dose ratio method using the mean effective concentrations . in the therapeutic use for the treatment of angina the aii receptor antagonizing compounds of this invention are incorporated into standard pharmaceutical compositions . they can be administered orally , parenterally , rectally , topically or transdermally . the compounds of the instant invention and their pharmaceutically acceptable salts which are active when given orally can be formulated as liquids , for example syrups , suspensions or emulsions , tablets , capsules and lozenges . a liquid formulation will generally consist of a suspension or solution of the compound or pharmaceutically acceptable salt in a suitable liquid carrier ( s ) for example , ethanol , glycerine , non - aqueous solvent , for example , polyethylene glycol , oils , or water with a suspending agent , preservative , flavouring or colouring agent . a composition in the form of a tablet can be prepared using any suitable pharmaceutical carrier ( s ) routinely used for preparing solid formulations . examples of such carriers include magnesium stearate , starch , lactose , sucrose and cellulose . a composition in the form of a capsule can be prepared using routine encapsulation procedures . for example , pellets containing the active ingredient can be prepared using standard carriers and then filled into a hard gelatin capsule ; alternatively , a dispersion or suspension can be prepared using any suitable pharmaceutical carrier ( s ), for example aqueious gums , celluloses , silicates or oils and the dispersion or suspension then filled into a soft gelatin capsule . the compounds of the instant invention and their pharmaceutically acceptable salts which are active when administered parenterally ( i . e . by injection of infusion ) can be formulated as solutions or suspensions . a composition for parenteral administration will generally consist of a solution or suspension of the active ingredient in a sterile aqueous carrier or parenterally acceptable oil , for example polyethlene glycol , polyvinyl pyrrolidone , lecithin , arachis oil or sesame oil . alternatively , the solution can be lyophilised and then reconstituted with a suitable solvent just prior to administration . a typical suppository composition comprises a compound of the instant invention or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof which is active when administered in this way , with a binding and / or lubricating agent such as polymeric glycols , gelatins or coca butter or other low melting vegetable or synthetic waxes or fats . a typical transdermal formulation comprises a conventional aqueous or non - aqueous vehicle , for example , a cream , ointment lotion or paste or in the form of a medicated plaster , patch or membrane . for topical administration , the pharmaceutical compositions adapted include solutions , suspensions , ointments , and solid inserts . typical pharmaceutically acceptable carriers are , for example , water , mixtures of water and water - miscible solvents such as lower alkanois or vegetable oils , and water soluble ophthalmologically acceptable non - toxic polymers , for example , cellulose derivatives such as methyl cellulose . the pharmaceutical preparation may also contain non - toxic auxiliary substances such as emulsifying , preserving , wetting , and bodying agents , as for example , polyethylene glycols ; antibacterial components such as quaternary ammonium compounds ; buffering ingredients such as alkali metal chloride ; antioxidants such as sodium metabisulfite ; and other conventional ingredients such as sorbitan monolaurate . preferably the composition is in unit dose form . doses of the compounds of the instant invention in a pharmaceutical dosage unit will be a efficacious , non - toxic quantity selected from the range of 0 . 01 - 200 mg / kg of active compound , preferably 0 . 1 - 100 mg / kg . the selected dose is administered to a human patient in need of treatment of angina induced by angiotensin ii from 1 - 6 times daily , orally , rectally , topically , by injection , or continuously by infusion . oral dosage units for human administration preferably contain from 10 to 500 mg of active compound . lower dosages are used generally for parenteral administration . oral administration is used when safe , effective , and convenient for the patient . no unacceptable toxicological effects are expected when compounds of the invention are administered in accordance with the present invention . the following examples are intended to illustrate , but not to limit , the present invention . examples 1 - 4 describe how to make certain compounds encompassed by the generic formulae of ( ii )-( v ). the remaining examples are directed to pharmaceutical compositions of this invention . the compounds included in these disclosed compositions are representative of the aii receptor antagonists included within the scope of the instant invention , but therapeutically effective amounts of other aii antagonists as discussed hereinabove may be substituted . the procedures of examples 1 - 4 are illustrative of the synthesis of compounds encompassed by generic formulae ( ii )-( v ). substitution of starting materials by the appropriate known reagents yields additional compounds within the scope of formulae ( ii )-( v ). reagents , protecting groups , and functionality on the imidazole and other fragments of the molecule must be consistent with the proposed chemical transformations . the procedure of example 1 is illustrative of the synthesis of compounds encompassed by generic formula ( ii ). a solution of 2 - chlorobenzylamine ( 14 . 2 g , 0 . 1 mol ) and triethylamine ( 13 . 9 ml , 0 . 1 mol ) in dimethyl - formamide ( 100 ml ) was treated with methyl chloroacetate ( 10 . 9 g , 0 . 1 mol ). the mixture was heated at 50 ° c . for 3 . 5 hours . the cooled reaction mixture was diluted with diethyl ether , the solids filtered and the concentrated filtrate was flash chromatographed over silica gel with 6 : 4 hexane in ethyl acetate to provide 15 . 3 g ( 71 %) of homogenous methyl 2 -[ n -( 2 - chloro - phenyl ) methyl ] amino - acetate . this product ( 15 . 2 g , 0 . 071 mol ) in xylene ( 100 ml ) was treated with 98 % formic acid ( 2 . 74 ml , 0 . 0711 mol ) and the mixture was refluxed for 2 . 5 hours with a dean - stark water separator . evaporation gave 17 . 1 g ( 99 %) of methyl 2 -[ n -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - n - formyl ] aminoacetate . this formylated product ( 17 . 0 g , 0 . 071 mol ) was dissolved in methyl formate ( 13 . 3 ml , 0 . 216 mol ) and added dropwise to a sodium methoxide mixture prepared by adding sodium metal ( 1 . 79 g , 0 . 0778 g - atom ) to tetrahydrofuran ( 325 ml ) followed by slow addition of methanol ( 3 . 15 ml , 0 . 0778 mol ). the combined mixture was stirred at room temperature for 18 hours , then evaporated to dryness . this crude product was dissolved in 50 % aqueous methanol ( 200 ml ), treated with charcoal , filtered and the solution was cooled in ice . concentrated hydrochloric acid ( 14 . 3 ml of 12 n , 0 . 171 mol ) was added slowly to this solution followed by a solution of potassium thiocyanate ( 8 . 6 g , 0 . 0885 mol ) in water ( 20 ml ). the mixture was heated in an oil bath held at 90 ° c . for 2 . 5 hours , then cooled to − 10 ° c . the precipitated solid was filtered , washed with cold ethanol - water and dried at 60 ° c . to provide 14 . 7 g ( 74 %) of 5 - carboxymethyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - thio - 1h - imidazole ; m . p . 72 - 74 ° c . a mixture of 5 - carboxymethyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl - 2 - thio - 1h - imidazole ( 2 g , 7 . 08 mmol ), ethyl acetate ( 20 ml ), 5 % sodium carbonate solution ( 40 ml ) and propylbromide ( 4 ml , 44 mmol ) was heated at 60 ° c . for 18 hours . the organic layer was separated , dried over magnesium sulfate and concentrated to 2 . 23 g of crude product . trituration with diethyl ether provided 1 . 63 g ( 71 %) of 5 - carboxymethyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole ; m . p . 68 - 71 ° c . ( from hexane ). the ester was hydrolyzed with aqueous sodium hydroxide solution to give 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - thiopropyl - 1h - imidazole - 5 - carboxylic acid ; m . p . 158 - 159 . 5 ° c . ( from ethanol ). a solution of 5 - carboxymethyl - 1 - 1 -( 2 - chloro - phenyl ) methyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole ( 3 . 74 g , 11 . 5 mmol ) in dry tetrahydrofuran ( 50 ml ) was cooled to − 78 ° c . under argon , and a solution of diisobutyl aluminum hydride in toluene ( 30 ml of 1 m ) was added dropwise . the mixture was stirred at − 78 ° c . for 1 . 5 hours , then allowed to slowly warm to room temperature . the reaction was quenched by pouring onto iced dilute acetic acid , the product was extracted into methylene chloride and the organic extracts were washed with water , 5 % sodium carbonate solution and brine . the dried , concentrated product was a light tan solid ( 3 . 32 g ). crystallization from ethanol / water gave 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - hydroxymethyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole ; m . p . 98 - 101 ° c . a mixture of 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - hydroxymethyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole ( 0 . 117 g , 0 . 393 mmol ) in thionyl chloride ( 1 ml ) was refluxed for 2 hours , evaporated in vacuo to an amorphous solid and triturated with ether to provide 1 ( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl - 5 - chloromethyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole hydrochloride ( 0 . 13 g , 94 %). a solution of diisopropylamine ( 8 . 4 ml ) in tetrahydrofuran ( 100 ml ) was cooled to − 78 ° c . under argon and a solution of n - butyl lithium ( 30 ml of 2 . 5 m in hexane ) was added . the mixture was stirred at − 78 ° c . for 30 minutes and at 0 ° c . for 10 minutes . after being recooled at − 78 ° c ., a solution of n -( diphenylmethylene )- glycine ethyl ester ( tetra . lett ., ( 1978 ), 2541 , 4625 ) ( 15 . 4 g ) in tetrahydrofuran ( 50 ml ) was added , the mixture was stirred for 1 hour at − 78 ° c . and a solution of 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - chloromethyl - 2 - propylthio - 1h - imidazole hydrochloride ( 9 . 4 g ) in dry dimethylformamide ( 20 ml ) was added . the mixture was then stirred at ambient temperature for 18 hours , poured into saturated ammonium chloride solution and the aqueous layer was extracted with methylene chloride . the organic extracts were washed with water , dried with magnesium sulfate concentrated and chromatographed over silica gel with 1 % methanol in methylene chloride to afford 6 . 88 g of 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ]- 2 - propylthio - n -( diphenylmethylene ) histidine ethyl ester . this product ( 2 . 59 g ) was dissolved in methylene chloride ( 52 ml ), aqueous 1n hydrochloric acid solution ( 52 ml ) was added and the mixture was stirred at 25 ° c . for 18 hours . the aqueous layer was separated , neutralized to ph 10 . 5 with sodium carbonate and the product was extracted into methylene chloride . the organic extract was dried with magnesium sulfate and concentrated to give 1 . 29 g ( 71 %) of 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ]- 2 - propylthio - histidine ethyl ester as an oil . a solution of 3 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - propylthiohistidine ethyl ester ( 0 . 4 g , 1 . 05 mmol ) in methylene chloride ( 20 ml ) was treated with triethylamine ( 0 . 17 ml ) and butyryl chloride ( 0 . 12 ml ). the mixture was stirred at 25 ° c . for 18 hours . the reaction was partitioned between ethyl acetate and water , and the organic layer was washed with water , dried , concentrated an chromatographed over silica gel with 1 to 3 % of methanol in methylene chloride to give 0 . 367 g ( 77 %) of 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ]- 2 - propylthio - n - butyrylhistidine ethyl ester as an oil . a mixture of 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 2 - propylthio - n - butyrylhistidine ethyl ester ( 0 . 37 g , 0 . 819 mmole ), ethanol ( 4 ml ), water ( 4 ml ) and potassium hydroxide pellets ( 0 . 098 g , 1 . 75 mmole ) was stirred at 25 ° c . for 1 hours . the reaction was then diluted with water and the ph was adjusted to 4 with 1n aqueous hydrochloric acid solution . the product was extracted into methylene chloride , washed with water , dried and concentrated to an orange solid . two crystallizations from chloroform provided 0 . 22 g of 3 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ]- 2 - propylthio - n - butyrylhistidine ; m . p . 178 °- 181 ° c . the procedure of example 2 is illustrative of the synthesis of compounds encompassed by generic formula ( iii ). imidazole was converted to the 1 - diethoxyortho - amide derivative by the method of curtis and brown , j . org . chem . , ( 1980 ), 45 , 20 . imidazole ( 12 . 8 g , 0 . 19 mol ) and 118 . 4 g ( 0 . 8 mol ) of triethylorthoformate were reacted in the presence of 1 g of p - toluenesulfonic acid to give 20 . 6 ( 61 %), bp 65 - 70 ° c . ( 0 . 1 mm ) of 1 - diethoxyorthoamide imidazole . this product ( 24 . 0 g , 0 . 14 mol ) was dissolved in dry tetrahydrofuran ( 250 ml ), cooled at − 40 ° c . and n - butyl lithium ( 0 . 14 mol , 56 . 4 ml of 2 . 5 m in hexane ) was added to − 40 ° c . to − 35 ° c . after 15 minutes n - butyl iodide ( 31 . 1 g , 0 . 169 mol ) was added at − 40 ° c ., and the reaction was stirred overnight at ambient temperature . the reaction was partitioned between ether an 0 . 3 n hydrochloric acid , and the organic layer was repeatedly extracted with dilute hydrochloric acid . the combined aqueous extracts were neutralized with sodium bicarbonate solution , extracted with methylene chloride , dried over magnesium sulfate and concentrated . a flash distillation on a kugelrohr apparatus provided 14 . 8 g ( 85 %) of 2 - n - butylimidazole . 2 - n - butylimidazole ( 9 . 7 g , 0 . 078 mol ) was dissolved in methanol ( 50 ml ) and added dropwise to a solution of sodium methoxide ( from sodium hydride ( 2 . 31 g , 0 . 0934 mol ) in methanol ( 250 ml )). after one hour the solution was evaporated to dryness , and the sodium salt was taken up in dry dimethylformamide ( 150 ml ) and 2 - chlorobenzyl bromide ( 16 . 3 g , 0 . 079 mol ) was added . the mixture was heated at 50 ° c . for 17 hours under argon , poured onto ice water and the product was extracted into ethyl acetate . the extract was washed , dried , and concentrated to give 18 . 5 g of crude product which was chromatographed over silica gel with 2 : 1 ethyl acetate / hexane to provide 11 . 9 g ( 61 %) of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazole as an oil . thin layer chromatography on silica gel with 4 : 1 ethyl acetate / hexane gave an r f value of 0 . 59 . a mixture of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazole ( 95 . 5 g , 0 . 384 mol ), 37 % formaldehyde ( 500 ml ), sodium acetate ( 80 g ) and acetic acid ( 60 ml ) was heated to reflux for 40 hours under argon . the reaction was concentrated in vacuo , and the residue was stirred with 500 ml of 20 % sodium hydroxide solution for 4 hours , diluted with water and extracted with methylene chloride . the extract was washed , dried , and concentrated . the crude product ( 117 g ) was flash chromatographed over 600 g of silica gel with a gradient of ethyl acetate of 10 % of methanol in ethyl acetate to give 8 . 3 g of starting material , 24 . 5 g of a mixture of starting material and product , and 44 g ( 41 %) of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - hydroxymethyl - 1h - imidazole ; mp 86 - 88 ° c . ( from ethyl acetate ). further elution provided the bis ( 4 , 5 - hydroxymethyl ) derivative ; mp 138 - 140 ° c . ( from ethyl acetate ). a mixture of valeramidine methyl ether hydrochloride ( 250 g , 1 . 66 mol ) and dihydroxyacetone ( 150 g , 0 . 83 mol ) dissolved in liquid ammonia was allowed to stand overnight at room temperature in a pressure vessel , and then heated at 65 ° c . for 4 hours at 375 psi . the ammonia was allowed to evaporate , and the residue was dissolved in methanol ( 3l ). the resulting slurry was refluxed with added acetonitrile ( 1l ). the solution was decanted from the solid ammonium chloride while hot . this procedure was repeated , and the combined acetonitrile extracts were treated with charcoal , filtered hot and the filtrate was concentrated in vacuum to give the dark oil , 2 - n - butyl - 5 - hydroxymethylimidazole ( 253 g , 163 mol , 98 %). this crude alcohol ( 253 g ) was treated with acetic anhydride ( 400 ml ) at − 15 ° c . and then allowed to warm to ambient temperature with stirring , and then stirred an additional 19 hours . the acetic anhydride was evaporated at reduced pressure , the residue taken up in methylene chloride , and the organic phase was washed with 5 % sodium bicarbonate solution and water . the extract was dried over sodium sulfate and concentrated to give 323 g ( 83 %) of 1 - acetyl - 4 - acetoxymethyl - 2 - n - butylimidazole . this diacetate was n - alkylated by the following procedure . to a solution of triflic anhydride ( 120 ml , 0 . 71 mol ) in methylene chloride ( 200 ml ) at − 78 ° c . under argon was added a solution of diisopropyl ethylamine ( 128 ml , 0 . 73 mol ) and 2 - chlorobenzyl alcohol ( 104 g , 0 . 72 mol ) in methylene chloride ( 350 ml ) over a period of 20 minutes . after being stirred an additional 20 minutes at − 78 ° c ., this solution was then treated with 1 - acetyl - 4 - acetoxymethyl - 2 - n - butylimidazole ( 146 g , 0 . 61 mol ) dissolved in methylene chloride ( 300 ml ) over a 20 - minute interval . the mixture was then stirred at ambient temperature for 18 hours and the solvents were evaporated , the residual 2 - n - butyl - 5 - acetoxymethyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazole was used without purification for the hydrolysis of the acetate group . a solution of crude 2 - n - butyl - 5 - acetoxymethyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - imidazole ( 250 g ) in methanol ( 200 ml ) was treated with 10 % sodium hydroxide solution ( 700 ml ) and the mixture was heated on a steam bath for 4 hours . after cooling , methylene chloride was added , the organic phase was separated , washed with water , dried and concentrated . the residue was dissolved in ether , cooled , and seeded to give the crude product . recrystallization from ethyl acetate gave 176 g of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - hydroxymethyl - 1h - imidazole ; mp 86 - 88 ° c . this material was identical in all respects to the product prepared in method 1 . a mixture of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - hydroxymethyl - 1h - imidazole , prepared in example 1 ( ii ), ( 10 g , 0 . 0337 mol ) in thionyl chloride ( 75 ml ) was refluxed for one hour , evaporated in vacuo and the residue azeotroped three times with toluene . the solid was triturated with ethyl ether and collected to provide 10 . 4 g ( 88 %) of the hydrochloride salt of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - chloromethyl - 1h - imidazole . to dry dimethylformamide ( 50 ml ) under argon was added sodium hydride ( 0 . 53 g , 0 . 022 mol ) followed by diethyl benzyl malonate ( 5 . 51 g , 0 . 022 mol ) in dimethylformamide ( 10 ml ) at 0 ° c . the mixture was stirred at ambient temperature for one hour . a solution of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 5 - chloromethyl - 1h - imidazole hydrochloride ( 3 . 5 g , 0 . 0105 mol ) in dimethylformamide ( 40 ml ) was added over 5 minutes . the reaction mixture was stirred at 25 ° c . for 18 hours ; then partitioned between water and methylene chloride . the organic layer was washed with water , dried , and concentrated . the crude product was flash chromatographed over silica gel to give 4 . 54 g ( 85 %) of the title compound as an oil . a mixture of diethyl [ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 2 - chloro - phenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] methyl - 2 - benzylmalonate ( 0 . 72 g , 1 . 36 mmol ), potassium hydroxide ( 0 . 83 g , 14 . 7 mmol ), water ( 15 ml ) and ethanol ( 25 ml ) was refluxed for 4 hours . the ethanol was evaporated , the residual aqueous layer was extracted with diethyl ether , and the basic solution was adjusted to ph 3 . 75 with concentrated hydrochloric acid . the precipitated product was extracted into methylene chloride , dried , and concentrated . this crude product was flash chromatographed on silica gel with 10 % methanol in methylene chloride to give 0 . 51 g ( 86 %) of 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 - benzylpropanoic acid ; mp 118 - 120 ° c . ( from acetone / diethyl ether as the hydrochloride salt ). the procedure of example 3 is illustrative of the synthesis of compound encompassed by generic formula ( iv ). hexane - washed 80 % sodium hydride ( 1 . 45 g , 0 . 0483 mol ) in dimethylformamide ( 80 ml ) under argon was treated with a solution of 2 - n - butylimidazole ( 5 . 45 g , 0 . 0439 mol ) in dimethylformamide ( 14 ml ) dropwise at 25 ° c . and the reaction was stirred an additional hour . then 2 -( trimethylsilyl ) ethoxymethyl chloride ( sem - cl ) ( 7 . 68 g , 0 . 0461 mol ) was added , the mixture was stirred for 18 hours at ambient temperature and then partitioned between ice water and ethyl acetate . the washed , dried , concentrated organic solution was chromatographed over silica gel with 1 : 1 hexane in ethyl acetate to yield 10 . 8 g ( 96 %) of 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( trimethylsilyl )- ethoxymethyl - imidazole . a solution of 2 - n - butyl - 1 - sem imidazole ( prepared above ) ( 6 . 37 g , 0 . 025 mol ) in ethyl ether ( 125 ml ) was treated dropwise with n - butyl lithium ( 0 . 0255 mol , 10 . 2 ml of 2 . 5 m in hexane ) under argon at room temperature . after being stirred for an additional 45 minutes , tributyltin chloride ( 8 . 83 g , 7 . 4 ml , 0 . 026 mol ) was added dropwise . the suspension was stirred overnight , saturated ammonium chloride solution was added and the ether layer was separated , washed with brine , dried over sodium sulfate , concentrated and flash chromatographed over silica gel with 3 : 1 hexane / ethyl acetate to provide 11 . 3 g ( 83 %) of 2 - n - butyl - 5 - tributyltin - 1 -( trimethyl - silyl ) ethoxymethylimidazole . to a solution of methyl 3 - hydroxybenzoate ( 1 . 73 g , 11 . 3 mmol ), 4 - dimethylaminopryridine ( 215 mg , 1 . 74 mmol ), and 2 , 6 - lutidine ( 2 . 0 ml , 16 . 6 mmol ) in 60 ml of methylene chloride at − 30 ° c . was added trifluoromethane - sulfonic anhydride ( 2 . 8 ml , 16 . 6 mmol ). after stirring the reaction mixture for 10 min at − 30 ° c ., the cooling bath was removed and the reaction was stirred at ambient temperature for 4 hours . saturated aqueous ammonium chloride solution was then added , the layers were separated and the aqueous layer was back extracted twice with methylene chloride . the combined organic extracts were dried with sodium sulfate and the methylene chloride was removed in vacuo . the residue was dissolved in ethyl acetate and washed with water , 10 % aqueous hydrochloric acid solution , saturated sodium bicarbonate solution and brine . the organic extract was dried with magnesium sulfate and the solvent was removed in vacuo . the crude product was flash chromatographed over silica gel eluting with 1 : 1 diethyl ether / hexane to give 3 . 13 ( 98 %) of methyl 3 - trifluoromethane - sulfonyloxybenzoate . to a solution of 2 - n - butyl - 5 - tributytin - 1 -( trimethylsilyl ) ethoxymethylimidazole ( 6 . 06 g , 11 . 1 mmol ), methyl 3 - trifluoromethanesulfonyloxybenzoate ( 3 . 13 g , 11 . 0 mmol ) in 53 ml of 1 , 4 - dioxane at room temperature was added tetrakis ( triphenyl - phosphine ) palladium ( 0 ) ( 256 mg , 0 . 22 mmol ). the reaction mixture was stirred under argon at room temperature for 10 minutes and then 2 , 6 - di - t - butyl - 4 - methylphenol ( 10 mg ) was added . the reaction was heated at 100 ° c . for 3 . 5 hours , cooled to room temperature and treated with 70 ml of diethyl ether and 65 ml of aqueous potassium fluoride solution . the reaction mixture was left stirring at room temperature for 17 hours and then filtered through celite ®. the organic layer was washed with water and brine , dried over magnesium sulfate and concentrated in vacuo . the crude product was flash chromoatgraphed over silica gel eluting with 3 : 1 ethyl aetate / hexane to give 2 . 88 g ( 67 %) of methyl 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( trimethylsilyl ) ethoxymethyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoate . to a solution of methyl 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( trimethyl - silyl ) ethoxymethyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoate ( 2 . 88 g , 7 . 41 mmol ) in 35 ml of ethanol was added 35 ml of 5n aqueous hydrochloric acid solution . the reaction mixture was heated at 55 ° c . for 25 hours and then an additional 20 ml of 5n aqueous hydrochloric acid solution was added . the reaction mixture was heated at 70 ° c . for one hour and then stirred at room temperature for 66 hours . the ethanol was removed in vacuo and the resulting aqueous layer was neutralized with saturated aqueous sodium bicarbonate solution and extracted with ethyl acetate . the organic extract was dried with sodium sulfate and the solvent was removed in vacuo . the residue ( 1 . 46 g , 5 . 65 mmol ) was dissolved in methanol ( 40 ml ) and was treated with triethylamine ( 5 . 2 ml , 37 . 3 mmol ) and di - t - butyl dicarbonate ( 8 . 4 ml , 35 . 4 mmol ) at room temperature for 42 . 5 hours . the mixture was concentrated in vacuo and the crude product was flash chromatographed over silica gel with a gradient of ethyl acetate in hexane ( 1 : 8 to 4 : 1 ) to give 800 mg ( 30 %) of methyl 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 - t - butoxycarbonyl - 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoate . to a stirred solution of trifluoromethanesulfonic anyhydride ( 0 . 72 ml , 5 . 1 mmol ) in methylene chloride ( 20 ml ) held at − 78 ° c . under argon was added a solution of 2 - chlorobenzyl alcohol ( 748 mg , 5 . 25 mmol ) and diisopropylethylamine ( 810 mg , 6 . 26 mmol ) in methylene chloride ( 25 ml ). after stirring for 15 minutes at − 78 ° c ., a solution of methyl ( 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 - t - butoxycarbonyl - 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoate ( 1 . 53 g , 4 . 26 mmol ) in methylene chloride ( 10 ml ) was added dropwise over 10 minutes and the mixture was stirred overnight at room temperature . a solution of 5 % sodium bicarbonate solution was added with stirring and the layers were separated , washed and dried . the reaction mixture was evaporated to dryness , the residue triturated with 1 : 1 hexane / ethyl acetate , the solid filtered off and the filtrate was concentrated and flash chromatographed over silica gel with 1 : 1 hexane / ethyl acetate to provide 600 mg ( 38 %) of methyl ( 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl )- methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoate . methyl 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoic ( 600 mg , 1 . 63 mmol ) was dissolved in 6 ml of ethanol and then 2 ml of 10 % aqueous sodium hydroxide solution was added . the reaction mixture was stirred at room temperature overnight , 10 % aqueous hydrochloric acid solution was added to ph 3 . 5 and the resulting solid was filtered , washed with water and dried to give 125 mg ( 21 %) of 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ] benzoic acid as the hydrochloride salt ; mp 200 - 202 ° c . the procedures of example 4 is illustrative of the synthesis of compounds encompassed by generic formula ( v ). the procedure described in r . k . bentley and f . g . holliman , j . chem . soc . ( c ) , 2447 ( 1990 ) was used . a mixture of 2 , 5 - dibromobenzoic acid ( 50 g , 0 . 18 mol ) in concentrated sulfuric acid was vigorously stirred as fuming nitric acid ( 62 . 5 ml ) was added dropwise at a rate to keep the temperature below 70 ° c . the reaction mixture was vigorously stirred , heated to 100 ° c . and then kept at 100 ° c . for 5 hours . the cooled reaction was cautiously poured into 2 liters of ice and vigorously stirred , the precipitate was filtered through a sintered glass funnel and the solid was washed well with water . crystallization was achieved by dissolving the solid in acetic acid ( 150 ml ) and after concentration to a half of the volume , crystals separated ( 16 . 72 g ); mp 225 - 229 ° c . an additional crop of 7 . 52 g was obtained to give a total yield of 24 . 24 g ( 41 %). a suspension of 2 , 5 - dibromo - 3 - nitrobenzoic acid ( 10 . 76 g , 0 . 0331 mol ) in toluene ( 100 ml ) was placed under argon , treated with 2 - chlorobenzylamine ( 14 . 06 g , 0 . 0993 mol ) and the mixture was brought to reflux . a clear , red solution resulted and the solution was refluxed for 24 hours , cooled , poured into 5 % sodium hydroxide solution ( 600 ml ) and ether ( 100 ml ). the insoluble material was filtered off , the layers separated and the aqueous phase was added to the insoluble material and acidified with 10 % hydrochloric acid solution . the separated crystalline produce was collected , washed with water and the solid was crystallized from a large volume of methanol to provide 7 . 85 g ( 61 . 5 %) of the yellow crystalline 5 - bromo - 2 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ] amino - 3 - nitrobenzoic acid ; mp 159 - 161 ° c . a solution of 5 - bromo - 2 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl ]- amino - 3 - nitrobenzoic acid ( 8 g , 0 . 021 mmol ) in pyridine ( 100 ml ) was cooled in ice under argon and valeryl chloride ( 5 . 5 g , 0 . 046 mol ) was added . the mixture was heated at 45 ° c . for 18 hours , poured into water , acidified with hydrochloric acid and the oily product was extracted into ethyl acetate . the organic extracts were washed with 10 % hydrochloric acid solution and brine , and the dried , concentrated product afforded about 100 % yield of the crude oil , 5 - bromo - 2 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - n - valeryl ]- amino - 3 - nitrobenzoic acid , which was used without further purification . a solution of 5 - bromo - 2 -[( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - n - valeryl ] amino - 3 - nitrobenzoic acid ( 9 . 72 g , 0 . 0207 mol ) in tetrahydrofuran ( 75 ml ) was diluted with 5 % sodium bicarbonate solution ( 75 ml ), and then treated portionwise with sodium hydrosulfite ( 12 g ) over 2 hours . the ph was adjusted to 7 . 1 with additional solid sodium bicarbonate . after an hour of stirring , 6 g of additional sodium hydrosulfite was added , and , after another hour of stirring , the mixture was filtered , diluted with ether , and the layers were separated . the organic phase was concentrated to a solid that was dissolved in acetic acid ( 15 ml ) and concentrated hydrochloric acid ( 5 ml ) and heated on a steam bath for 2 hours . the residual slurry was concentrated in vacuo , diluted with water and the solid was collected . the solid was dissolved in hot methanol , some insolubles filtered off , and the filtrate was concentrated to incipient crytallization . after chilling , there was obtained 4 . 26 g ( 37 %) of 5 - bromo - 2 - n - butyl - 1 -( 2 - chlorophenyl ) methyl - 1h - benzimidazole - 7 - carboxylic acid ; mp 254 - 255 ° c . an oral dosage form for administering orally active formula ( i ) compounds is produced by screening , mixing and filling into hard gelatin capsules the ingredients in proportions , for example , as shown below . ingredients amounts ( e )- 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 4 - carboxy - 100 mg phenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 - ( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid magnesium stearate 10 mg lactose 100 mg the sucrose calcium sulfate dihydrate and orally active formula ( i ) compounds are mixed and granulated with 10 % gelatin solution . the wet granules are screened , dried , mixed with the starch , talc and stearic acid , screened and compressed into a tablet . ingredients amounts ( e )- 3 -[( 2 - n - propyl - 1 -{( 4 - carboxynaphth - 75 mg 1 - yl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 -( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid calcium sulfate dihydrate 100 mg sucrose 15 mg starch 8 mg talc 4 mg stearic acid 2 mg ( e )- 3 -[ 2 - n - butyl - 1 -{( 4 - carboxyphenyl ) methyl }- 1h - imidazol - 5 - yl ]- 2 -( 2 - thienyl ) methyl - 2 - propenoic acid , 50 mg , is dispersed in 25 ml of normal saline to prepare an injectable preparation . it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments illustrated hereabove and the right to the illustrated embodiments and all modifications coming within the scope of the following claims is reserved .	0
in the present invention , it has been determined that using an glucocorticoid pharmacologic agent in combination with a gene of interest provides a distinct improvement in the efficiency of gene delivery to cells which express glucocorticoid receptors as well as increasing the number of cells receiving the gene . in particular , dexamethasone , one of the most potent synthetic glucocorticoid , at mole ratios up to 3 compared to the cationic lipid , has been shown to facilitate the non - viral gene delivery of a variety of genetic constructs capable of performing their function ( including apoptotic cell death ) in human cancer cells . therefore the present invention provides an aqueous formulation useful for selective targeting and delivery of genes to cancer cells , comprising : ( a ) a cationic lipid , ( b ) a steroid and ( c ) a neutral co - lipid characterized in enhancing the transfection efficiency and stability of the formulation , wherein the said cationic lipid , steroid and neutral co - lipid are mixed in the ratio in the range of 0 . 75 : 0 . 5 : 1 to 1 : 2 : 1 preferably 0 . 75 : 1 : 1 to 1 : 2 : 1 . in a preferred embodiment of the invention , genes which can induce cell death are delivered via a non - viral route in combination with glucocorticoid pharmacological compounds in order to provide more complete tumor remission and more effective prevention of tumor recurrence , thus leading to improved patient survival . the glucocorticoid pharmacological agent ( e . g ., dexamethasone ) is to be administered via the same route of gene delivery , by incorporating it with the non - viral gene carrier ( e . g ., cationic lipid coat ). in this embodiment , four classes of genes may be used . first , cytotoxic genes such a tumor necrosis factor alpha or the tumor suppressor gene p53 , which promotes apoptosis , can be provided . second , genes which sensitize cells by enzymatically activating pro - drugs can be provided . for example , thymidine kinase or cytosine deaminase which respectively activates the cytotoxic pro - drugs gancylclovir and 5 - fluorocytosine could be provided . third , genes which promote immune surveillance could be provided . for example , tumor growth factor - beta 1 could be provided in combination with interleukin - 2 and interferon - gamma . fourth , antimetastatic genes , such as 5 e1a , could be provided . the idea of making this formulation stems from the fact that dexamethasone , a glucocorticoid , has close structural resemblance with cholesterol , a commonly used co - lipid present in many of the cationic lipids used for non - viral based gene delivery . the present invention provides a method for delivering genetic constructs via a non - viral mode with enhanced efficiency by co - formulating cationic lipid based gene delivery formulation carrying a glucocorticoid based pharmacologic agent along with common co - lipids cholesterol . cholesterol as a co - lipid has long been used in liposomal formulations . it is known that cholesterol - containing liposomes have greater stability and lower ion - permeability than when cholesterol is not used [ straubinger et al 1983 , cell , 32 , 1069 - 1079 ]. in the event of lysosomal entrapment during cellular delivery the liposomal cargo is expected to be chewed up by the lysosomal degradative enzymes , such as nucleases , that work at ph & lt ; 6 . it is very much conceivable from the above known facts that cholesterol - associated liposomes not only provide a concrete integrity to the lipid - dna complex in cytosol but also prevent diffusion of lower ph solution containing lysosomal nucleases inside the lipid - dna core . the use of cholesterol increasing the stability of the genetic cargo and transfection efficiency is documented previously [ templeton et al . 1997 , nature biotechnology , 15 , 647 - 652 ; xu and szoka 1996 , biochemistry , 35 , 5616 - 5623 ]. in the context the present invention stands with complete patentability because the formulation uses our own patented cationic lipid along side a secondary co - lipid in the name of dexamethasone , a common , generic , glucocorticoid . the dexamethasone is not modified at all and is used as such . the concentration at which the dexamethasone is used did not induce any toxicity to non - cancer cells . the use of dexamethasone for the targeted gene delivery to cancer is not documented in any of these papers . moreover , we for the first time showed that upon associating dexamethasone into cationic lipid formulation , the cancer cells are alone targeted leaving non - cancer cells untouched , even though the glucocorticoid receptors , through which dexamethasone works in cells , are ubiquitously present in all cells . the following examples are given by the way of illustration of the present invention and should not be construed to limit the scope of the present invention . glucocorticoid receptor expressing cell - specific gene delivery properties of the dexamethasone - cationic liposomal formulation : the in vitro transfection efficacies of dx liposome containing dexamethasone in combination with dodeac as cationic lipid and cholesterol as co - lipid at a mole ratio of 0 . 75 : 1 : 1 were evaluated by reporter gene expression assay using pcmv - sport - β - gal plasmid as the reporter gene in a549 , mcf - 7 and cho cells across the cationic lipid to dna having charge ratios 8 : 1 to 1 : 1 . dexamethasone containing liposome dx has been found to be nearly 2 - 30 folds more efficient in transfecting a549 and mcf - 7 cells ( human cancer cells expressing glucocorticoid receptor ) ( fig1 and 3 ) than cho cell line . dx was most efficient in transfecting lung cancer cells a549 at cationic lipid : dna charge ratios of 8 : 1 and 4 : 1 ( fig1 ). transfection efficiency of dx in a549 at 2 : 1 and 1 : 1 was at least 10 - 20 fold less than that of other charge ratios . however , dx was most efficient in transfecting breast cancer cells mcf - 7 at cationic lipid : dna charge ratios of 4 : 1 , 2 : 1 and 1 : 1 ( fig3 ). both in a549 and mcf - 7 cells , lipofectamine ™ mediate comparatively much less transfection in comparison to dx ( fig1 & amp ; 3 ). significantly low levels of reporter gene expression were observed for dx in the otherwise highly transfectable , non - cancerous , transformed cell cho across all the charge ratios studied with 8 : 1 and 4 : 1 gave highest transfection efficiencies ( fig5 ). transfection efficiencies of other charge ratios are not shown . lipofectamine ™ as expected did show up very high transfection efficiency in cho with respect to dx ( fig5 ). the contrastingly enhanced β - galactosidase reporter gene expression level observed in both a549 and mcf - 7 cells ( fig1 and 3 ) strongly indicate that transfection of glucocorticoid receptor expressing cancer cells , a549 and mcf - 7 by dx is likely to be mediated by the glucocorticoid receptor - binding dexamethasone as present in formulation dx . the transfection efficiencies of the dx formulation in transfecting glucocorticoid receptor expressing lung and breast cancer cells were significantly reduced when the gene transfer experiments were carried out by pretreating the cells with the ru - 38486 , the commercially available glucocorticoid receptor antagonists ( fig2 and 4 ) ( p & lt ; 0 . 01 ). similar ru - 38486 pretreatment studies in cho cells yielded no significant change in transfection efficiencies ( fig6 ) ( p & gt ; 0 . 1 ). thus , the results summarized in fig1 - 6 provided strong evidence for the involvement of glucocorticoid receptors expression in breast and lung cancer cells for the present class of dexamethasone associated gene delivery reagents . materials used — dulbecco &# 39 ; s modified eagle medium ( dmem ), fetal bovine serum was obtained from sigma - aldrich . lipofectamine ™ was obtained from invitrogen . p - cmv -. beta .- galactosidase was a generous gift from dr n . m . rao , ccmb , india . dexamethasone , ru - 38486 were purchased from ( sigma chemical co ., st . louis , mo .) cell - culture — mcf - 7 , cho , a549 cells were purchased from national center for cell sciences ( pune , india ) and were mycoplasma free . cells were cultured in dmem medium ( sigma chemical co ., st . louis , mo .) containing 10 % fetal bovine serum ( sigma chemical co ., st . louis , mo .) and 1 % penicillin - streptomycin at 370 c in a humidified atmosphere of 5 % co2 in air . cultures of 85 - 90 % confluency were used for all of the experiments . the cells were trypsinized , counted , subcultured in 96 - well plates for transfection and viability studies . the cells were allowed to adhere overnight before they were used for experiments . all the necessary compounds ( for e . g . dodeac , cholesterol , dope , dexamethasone ) were taken as stock solutions and mixed in a sample vial in appropriate amounts . it was dried as a thin film in gentle nitrogen flow and further dried in high vacuum for 6 hrs . then it was hydrated for overnight . after that it was subjected to bath sonication for 10 - 15 min and then probe sonicated at room temperature using a ti - probe sonicator for 3 - 4 min to get suv liposome . the liposomes were kept at 4 ° c . plasmid complexation & amp ; gene transfection — for a typical gene transfection study in vitro , cells were first seeded at a density of 12 , 000 - 15 , 000 cells / well in a 96 well plate usually 18 - 24 h before transfection . plasmid dna was complexed with cationic liposome typically in the following manner : 0 . 30 μg of pcmv - sport - β - gal dna , a negatively charged entity ( diluted to 50 μl with plain dmem ) was electrostatically complexed with varying amount of cationic liposomes ( a positively charged entity , diluted to 50 μl with plain dmem ) for 30 min . the molar ratios ( lipid : dna ) were 8 : 1 , 4 : 1 , 2 : 1 and 1 : 1 . after the complexation of plasmid dna and cationic liposome was completed , 200 μl of dmem containing 10 % fbs ( cm1 ×) were added to the resulting lipoplexes for triplicate experiments . thus the final concentration of serum became 6 . 7 %. cells were washed with phosphate - buffered saline ( pbs ), ph 7 . 4 ( 1 × 200 μl ) and then with lipoplex ( 100 μl ). after incubation of the cell plates at a humidified atmosphere containing 5 % co 2 at 37 ° c . for 4 hr , 100 μl of dmem containing 10 % fbs ( cm1 ×) were added to cells . the reporter gene activity was assayed after 48 hr . the media were removed completely from the wells and cells were lysed with 50 μl of 1 × lysis buffer ( np - 40 ) for 30 min . the beta - galactosidase activity per well was estimated by adding 50 μl of 2 × substrate ( 1 . 33 mg / ml of onpg , 0 . 2 m sodium phosphate , ph 7 . 3 and 2 mm magnesium chloride ) to the cell - lysate in the 96 well plate . absorption of the product ortho - nitrophenol at 405 nm was converted to absolute μ - galactosidase units using a calibration curve constructed with commercial μ - galactosidase enzyme . ru 38486 was dissolved in dmso at a concentration of 10 mm . 1 μl of it were added to each well plate where cells were plated previously in 100 μl of dmem + 10 % fbs . after 2 hr media were removed and cells were washed with pbs ( 1 × 100 μl ) and treated with lipoplexes . statistical analysis — all experiments were repeated at least once . data were expressed as mean ± standard derivation and statistically analyzed by the two - tailed unpaired student t - test using the microsoft excel software program ( microsoft , seattle , wash .). data were primarily considered significant if p & lt ; 0 . 01 . an experiment has been conducted to prove that indeed the cholesterol inclusion increases the stability of the liposomal formulation . the optimal formulation concentration that we used in our examples was 1 : 0 . 75 : 1 for dodeac : dex : chol . we made a formulation devoid of cholesterol but having the same ratio of cationic lipid and dexamethasone . the new formulation is hence dodeac : dex , 1 : 0 . 75 . the formulations were made 1 mm in concentration with respect to cationic lipid . 50 μl of each formulation was dispersed in 2 ml of phosphate buffer saline ( pbs ). pbs contains similar ionic strength and ph that prevails in a cellular environment . then we proceeded to measure the size in zetasizer ( malvern instruments , u . k .) over the period of time as indicated in fig7 . the data here indeed proves that the absence of cholesterol in cationic lipid formulation is detrimental for the size - stability of the liposome . the cholesterol - less formulation tends to increase in its size which might render it precipitate out in due course . in fact after 20 h it is noticed that the dodeac : dex ( 1 : 0 . 75 ) formulation indeed precipitated out , while the cholesterol containing formulation [ dodeac : dex : cholesterol : 1 : 0 . 75 : 1 ] remained intact and showed no signs of precipitation . the wide range of literature related with cationic lipid mediated gene transfection shows that the optimal size of the liposome showing efficient transfection should be in submicron level primarily because the lipid formulations with more than micron sizes will tend to precipitate out in long run rendering them incapable of carrying any bioactive molecules such as dna in a near - soluble form . moreover , a very big particulate matter will not be compatible in fusing with cellular membrane and hence will not be able to penetrate the membrane . in the same scenario , our cholesterol - formulated liposome does not change its size showing tremendous amount of stability and structural integrity of the formulation . two dexamethasone ( dex ) associated cationic liposome formulations comprising with or without cholesterol ( chol ) were made and proceeded to check their gene transfection efficiencies . the formulations were dodeac : dex : chol ( 1 : 0 . 75 : 1 ) and dodeac : dex ( 1 : 0 . 75 ). the said formulations were respectively complexed with plasmid encoding β - galactosidase gene and fed to the cells . following 4 h of lipid / dna complex treatment the cells were washed and kept at normal cell culture conditions for 48 h , on completion of which the cells were washed , lysed and assayed for the β - galactosidase gene using o - nitrophenol - b - d - galactopyrano side ( onpg ) substrate . the formation of o - nitrophenol is measured by measuring absorbance at 405 nm . the efficiency of transfection is directly proportional to the expression of transgene ( here , β - galactosidase enzyme ) that produces o - nitrophenol upon exposure with onpg substrate . the results are shown in fig8 . as the result shows that the cholesterol formulated cationic liposome could induce more transfection ( 2 - 4 folds ) than cholesterol - less formulation . the process of the present invention can be exploited for preparing cationic lipid based gene transfer reagents containing glucocorticoid receptor binding dexamethasone in the formulation . the invention of this dexamethsone associated cationic lipid based gene delivery vehicle is useful for delivering polyanions , polypeptides or nucleopolymers into cells via glucocorticoid receptors . the formulation disclosed herein can be used to deliver an expression vector into a cell for manufacturing or therapeutic use . the expression vectors can be used in gene therapy protocols to deliver a therapeutically useful protein to a cell or for delivering nucleic acids encoding therapeutically useful protein molecules . the dexamethasone associated lipid based formulation can be formulated with anionic , zwitterionic and lipophilic therapeutic agents including anticancer agents such as doxorubicin hydrochloride , a hydrophilic compound , or taxol ™, a lipophilic compound to obtain complexes comprising the invented dexamethasone - associated formulation and a therapeutic agent ( s ). in the invented dexamethasone - associated cationic lipid based formulation , two classes of genes may be used . first , cytotoxic genes such a tumor necrosis factor alpha or the tumor suppressor gene p53 , which promotes apoptosis , can be provided . second , those genes can be provided which sensitize cells by enzymatically activating pro - drugs . for example , thymidine kinase or cytosine deaminase , which respectively activates the cytotoxic pro - drugs gancylclovir and 5 - fluorocytosine . third , genes that promote immune surveillance could also be provided . for example , tumor growth factor - beta 1 could be provided in combination with interleukin - 2 and interferon - gamma . fourth , antimetastatic genes , such as 5 e1a , could also be provided for killing metastatic cells .	0
in accordance with this invention , silicon carbide ceramic composites are coated with an aqueous suspension of monoaluminum phosphate ( al ( h 2 po 4 ) 3 , flakes or chopped fibers of aluminoborosilicate , and silicon carbide powder . the coating is most easily applied by brushing it onto the composite surface , although other application methods , such as dip coating or spraying , could be used . once the coating is applied to the composite , it is allowed to air dry , and then fired to about 1000 ° c . to form a hard and durable ceramic coating . there are many silicon carbide ceramic composites which could be used in conjunction with the coating compositions of the present invention . one brand of composite is the afore - mentioned siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic , commercially - available from minnesota mining and manufacturing company , st . paul , minn . these composites are formed by first braiding , weaving , or filament - winding fibers of aluminoborosilicate ( sold under the trade designation nextel ™ 312 , having an alumina : boria mole ratio of from 9 : 2 to 3 : 1 . 5 and containing up to 65 weight percent silica , as described in u . s . pat . no . 3 , 795 , 524 , assigned to minnesota mining and manufacturing company ) to form a desired shape , such as a tube . the tube is coated with a phenolic resin in an organic solvent to rigidize it and thereafter coated with silicon carbide via chemical vapor deposition . the coating of the present invention is comprised of silicon carbide , aluminum phosphate and aluminoborosilicate . an available source of silicon carbide is available as fine abrasive powder , commercially available from fujimi kenzamaki kogyo co ., inc ., nagoya , japan . other forms of silicon carbide include flakes or fibers . in the preferred embodiment , 1 - 50 micrometer diameter silicon carbide powder is used . the precursor aluminum phosphate present in the coating is prepared by dissolving aluminum metal in phosphoric acid . a solution , 50 weight percent of al ( h 2 po 4 ) 3 in water , is available from stouffer chemical company , westport , conn . as the coating is fired , water and a portion of phosphate are released from the aluminum phosphate solution . thus , aluminum phosphate is left after firing . the mole ratio of silicon carbide to aluminum phosphate ( sic : alpo 4 ) in the fired coating is preferably in the range of about 1 : 1 to 50 : 1 . most preferably , the mole ratio of sic : alpo 4 in a fired coating is in the range of about 5 : 1 to 30 : 1 . aluminoborosilicate is also added to the coating composition . this may be in the form of powder , flakes or fibers . preferably , aluminoborosilicate , in the form of fibers , is used and is available under the trade designation nextel ™ ceramic fiber , commercially available from minnesota mining and manufacturing company . the ceramic fiber yarn ranges in diameter from 11 to 15 micrometers and is chopped by passing the yarn between two steel rollers with knurled surfaces . other methods of chopping include ball milling or other methods known in the art . the yarn is chopped to an average fiber length of about 0 . 02 to 0 . 05 mm . the weight percent of the aluminoborosilicate of the total coating composition is in the range of about 0 . 5 to 70 % and , preferably , in the range of about 30 to 70 %. to fashion the ceramic composites for testing the different coating compositions of the present invention , nextel ™ ceramic fiber braid was fit onto a 5 cm diameter aluminum mandrel , and a solution of 10 ml of phenolic resin ( durite ™ sc - 1008 phenolic resin , 60 - 64 % solids , commercially available from borden chemical , columbus , ohio ) in 90 ml of methanol was prepared . a small amount of the resin solution was poured over the ceramic fiber tube while rotating the mandrel , to assure uniform coverage by the resin . the tube was then dried in air until solvent odor could no longer be detected , and then cured in air at 200 ° c . for 20 minutes . this process resulted in a rigid tube having a golden color due to the cured polymer layer . the rigid preform was placed in a chemical vapor deposition chamber , as is well known in the art , wherein vacuum is applied and the chamber is heated . hydrogen gas was bubbled through dimethyldichlorosilane ( dds ) and passed through the cvd furnace chamber , thermally decomposing the dds which thereby deposited a layer of silicon carbide on the preform . by - product and unreacted gases exited the opposite end of the tube to the vacuum pumping and scrubbing system . typical process conditions for these samples were pressures of 5 to 50 torr , flow rates of 0 . 15 liters per minute ( lpm ) of dds , and 1 . 0 lpm of hydrogen gas at temperatures of 900 ° to 1000 ° c . coating times ranged from 4 to 8 hours . under these process conditions and times , the samples received from about 100 to about 200 weight percent increase due to silicon carbide deposition . in this process , sic coats and infiltrates the fibers and the resin coat is also decomposed to form a carbonaceous layer on the surface of the preform . it is useful to examine the fractured surfaces of broken composites made in the above manner . the fractured surfaces resulted in a &# 34 ; brushy &# 34 ; fracture surface which indicates that the coated material has composite rather than monolithic properties , and that heating and processing steps have not destroyed the desired composite properties . coupons of siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic were prepared in a manner similar to the tubes , using woven ceramic fiber ( nextel ™, 312 ) fabric . coupons were convenient for carrying out initial studies of coating feasibility and were more convenient to use in order to examine the adhesion and hardness of the coating . adhesion of the coating on an exposed edge and the performance of the coated edge are also important indicators of the coating performance . many sizes of tubes of the ceramic - ceramic composite were coated and tested . permeability of the final fired tubes was tested by a differential flow test using a flow meter . though not being bound by theory , it is believed that the coating works to maintain the composite characteristics of its composite substrate as well as to match the thermal expansion coefficient of the substrate ( which is important in furnace and high temperature applications ) because the coating itself is a composite material , being comprised of flakes or fibers and particles in a matrix . the flakes , fibers , and particles act to fill the porous sites in the matrix , thereby blocking the flow of gas through the porous sites . further , this discontinuous phase also deflects cracks that may initiate in the coating from mechanical or thermal stresses . aluminoborosilicate ( nextel ™ 312 ceramic fiber commercially - available from minnesota mining and manufacturing company , st . paul , minn .) ranging in diameter from 11 to 15 micrometers was chopped by passing the ceramic fiber yarn between two steel rollers with knurled surfaces . this resulted in chopped fibers with an average length of about 50 micrometers . to a 50 percent by weight solution of monoaluminum phosphate , ( al ( h 2 po 4 ) 3 , commercially available from stauffer , westport , conn .) was added silicon carbide powder (# 1500 , 8 micron , commercially available from fujimi kenmazai kogyo co ., ltd ., nagoya , japan ) and chopped nextel ™ 312 ceramic fiber . deionized water was added to some mixtures to adjust the consistency for coatability . table i shows compositions representing approximately 40 - 70 % fired solids and mole ratios of sic to alpo 4 in the fired product of from about 5 to about 20 : 1 . table i______________________________________coating compositionscomponent mass , g moles sic : alpo . sub . 4 % fired solids______________________________________a . al ( h . sub . 2 po . sub . 4 ). sub . 3 2 . 9 6 40 sic powder 1 . 1 nextel ™ fiber 1 . 3 deionized 2 . 0 waterb . al ( h . sub . 2 po . sub . 4 ). sub . 3 45 . 0 6 50 sic powder 16 . 3 nextel ™ fiber 11 . 4 deionized -- waterc . al ( h . sub . 2 po . sub . 4 ). sub . 3 50 . 0 6 55 sic powder 18 . 1 nextel ™ fiber 21 . 7 deionized -- waterd . al ( h . sub . 2 po . sub . 4 ). sub . 3 5 . 0 16 69 sic powder 5 . 0 nextel ™ fiber 5 . 0 deionized 1 . 0 watere . al ( h . sub . 2 po . sub . 4 ). sub . 3 1 . 5 20 47 sic powder 1 . 9 nextel ™ fiber 1 . 9 deionized 4 . 0 water______________________________________ tube - shaped siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic samples were dipped in , or painted with , each coating formulation , typically in only one pass . coated parts typically weighed 10 to 20 % more than the weight of the original part and had a coating thickness of about 1 mm . the coated parts were allowed to dry at ambient temperature and humidity for 24 hours and then were fired in air by ramping the temperature at 250 ° c . per hour to 1000 ° c ., and holding for 1 hour . the coatings were hard and durable as indicated by attempting to remove or crack the coating by scratching the surface with a steel needle . intact ceramic fibers and particles of sic could be seen by examination under a microscope at 50 × magnification . x - ray diffraction powder patterns of the fired coatings showed beta - sic , mullite , and alpo 4 as crystalline phases . in order to test the permeability of a sample before and after coating , tube - shaped samples were used . through - wall permeability of two tubes ( 5 . 0 cm outer diameter × 20 . 0 cm long ) was measured by closing each end of the tube with a one - hole stopper , and flowing air through the tube . air at a regulated pressure of 1 atmosphere ( 1 . 03 kg / cm 2 ) was admitted through a needle valve and monitored by a flow meter at the inlet end of the tube . a manometer at the exit end of the tube measured the difference in pressure between the inside of the tube ( pressurized air flowing through it ) and the outside of the tube ( room pressure ). for a particular pressure drop , the air flow in cm 3 / min is read from the flow meter . this flow rate , divided by the surface area of the tube , is permeability ( cubic centimeters per minute per square centimeter ). a coating of 55 weight percent fired solids and a 6 : 1 sic : alpo 4 mole ratio ( as per example 1c ) was applied to the outside surface of the tubes . the wet coating was 12 to 15 % of the original part weight . after air drying , the tubes were fired to 1000 ° c . the tubes were weighed and permeability checked again . table ii shows weight and permeability changes : table ii______________________________________permeability data permeabilityweight ( gm ) ( cm . sup . 3 min . sup .- 1 cm . sup .- 2 ) coated coatedtube uncoated & amp ; fired % wt . gain uncoated & amp ; fired______________________________________1 77 . 62 85 . 19 9 . 8 % 132 . 0 1 . 22 95 . 80 103 . 86 8 . 6 10 . 2 & lt ;. 02______________________________________ gas permeability was reduced by a factor of approximately 100 for tube 1 and a factor of 500 for tube 2 . two 5 . 0 × 20 . 3 cm siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite tubes were coated as described in example 1 with the coating formulation of example 1c ( designated a in table iii , below ), and two tubes with no coating ( designated b in table iii ) were fired together to 1000 ° c . for 1 hour . all tubes were cut into 2 . 5 cm long rings in order to do strength testing . additional samples were prepared to evaluate the coating as an edge protector for siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic . three 15 . 2 cm ( 6 &# 34 ;) samples were cut from one 5 . 1 by 45 . 7 cm ( 2 &# 34 ;× 18 &# 34 ;) tube and treated as follows sample c ( ends of 15 . 2 cm piece coated , heat treated to 1250 ° c . for 10 hours ), sample d ( cut into 1 &# 34 ; samples , cut edge coated , heat treated at 1250 ° c . for 10 hours ), and sample e ( cut into 1 &# 34 ; samples , heat treated at 1250 ° c . for 10 hours ). burst strength was measured on 1 &# 34 ; rings from all tubes by internal pressurization to failure ( burst test ); average results of the samples are shown in table iii . table iii______________________________________strength datatreatment burst strength1000 ° c ., 1 hr . average st . dev . ______________________________________a coated 9420 psi 540b uncoated 9230 1470 1250 ° c ., 10 hr . c ht . as piece , cut 8000 920d cut , edge coated , ht . 6840 1080e cut , no coating , ht . 5420 670______________________________________ in comparing samples a and b , the burst strength of the samples shows some improvement after coating . in the data for sample c ( 15 cm - long sample , heated , sectioned , and tested ) and e ( six 2 . 5 cm ring samples , heated , and tested ), it appeared that cutting samples before heat treating resulted in a loss of strength of about 33 % with uncut samples . cut samples which were also edge - coated ( sample d ) suffered only about a 15 % strength loss . fracture surfaces of samples c and d are &# 34 ; brushy &# 34 ; ( meaning individual fibers are visible and have not fused together during heat treatment ) and composite - like , while fractured samples of e were quite brittle with less evidence of fiber pull - out . although not intending to be held to any theory , it is speculated that unprotected edges allow oxygen to penetrate into the interface between fibers and the matrix . oxidation within the matrix is suspected to result in bonding between the fibers and the matrix and , thus , brittle fracture behavior results . three coating formulations were prepared as described in example 1 with the formulation of example 1d , except that the particle size of the sic was varied . the particle sizes were one micron , 8 micron , and 50 micron sic powders , commercially available from fujimi kenmazai kogyo co . ltd ., nagoya , japan . small siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite samples were painted with the coatings and fired first to 1000 ° c . for a period of one hour at a heat - up rate of 250 ° c ./ hour and then to 1200 ° c . for a period of one hour . each sample was hard and durable as indicated by visual inspection after attempting to remove or crack the coating by scratching the surface with a steel needle . thus , a wide range of silicon carbide particle sizes and a wide firing temperature range produce acceptable coatings . this example shows how the coating compositions can be used as adhesives to join two samples together . to test for shear strength of the coating when used as a bonding agent , 2 . 5 cm - long siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic tubes of two different diameters were used ( 5 cm and 4 . 4 cm in outer diameter ). the tubes were joined together by fitting the smaller diameter tube part - way into the larger tube , such that the smaller diameter tube projected 1 . 25 cm out of the larger diameter tube . a 1 . 25 cm band of coating ( 70 weight % solids ) was placed on the outer surface of the smaller tube , and then a 1 . 25 cm wide piece of nextel ™ 312 ceramic fiber tape was placed on the coating . additional coating was added to the tape , and then the tube with the coating and the ceramic fiber tape was fitted into the larger tube . additional coating was added to fill the gap between the two tubes . this bonded piece was dried for 24 hours at ambient temperature and humidity , heated for 10 hours at 110 ° c ., and fired for 2 hours at 1000 ° c . an axial compression test of the joined tubes was carried out . in this test , pressure was applied to the long axis of the joined tubes to try to break the adhesive bond formed by the dried and fired coating between the two tubes . axial compression tests of fired tubes were carried out at 0 . 051 cm / min ( 0 . 02 &# 34 ;/ min ) crosshead speed with an instron model 1125 load frame . joints tested in this way did not fail under a 1000 lb . ( 455 kg ) load at room temperature . this indicates that the coating can be used effectively to join siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite tubes together . this is useful for making t - or u - shaped tubes , or for cases in which the tube diameter must change in order to fit another piece . a further test of the bonding strength of the coating was to rapidly cycle joined pieces through a heating and cooling sequence . two 5 - cm long by 4 . 4 cm diameter siconex ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite tubes were butt - joined using the coating composition prepared as described above . an outer sleeve of 5 cm diameter and 2 . 5 cm long was added at the joint to further reinforce the butt - joint . the assembled tube was dried and fired as described above . the joined tubes were flame - cycle tested by heating the inside of the joined tubes with the gas flame of a meeker burner to a temperature of approximately 800 ° c . while cooling the outside of the tube with a flow of compressed air . these heat cycles did not cause failure of the bonds . further heating of this heat - cycled joint for 100 hours at 1000 ° c . in air caused no detectable strength change . in order to show utility of the coating formulations as an adhesive for patching siconex ™ composite parts together , a coating with 70 weight % solids was applied by brushing it onto a siconex ™ composite tube , drying in air for several hours , and firing with a gas - air torch of the kind typically used for glass working . components of the coating melted slightly , lightened in color , and then hardened . the coating is , thus , effective in attaching a patch to a siconix ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite tube with a hole in it or in bridging small gaps or cracks in siconix ™ fiber - reinforced ceramic composite tubes in situations where the tubes are in need of repair and require spot heat - treating . as will be apparent to those skilled in the art , various other modifications can be carried out for the above disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention .	8
fig1 shows a conventional shell - and - tube heat exchanger 10 that is configured to exchange heat between a first fluid and a second fluid in a single - pass , primarily counter - flow ( the two fluids flow primarily in opposite directions ) arrangement . the heat exchanger 10 has tubes 12 , a tube sheet 14 at each end of the tubes , baffles 16 , an input plenum 18 for a first fluid , an output plenum 20 for the first fluid , a shell 22 , an inlet 24 to the input plenum for the first fluid , and an outlet 26 from the output plenum for the first fluid . in addition , the shell 22 includes an inlet 28 for a second fluid and an outlet 30 for the second fluid . the first fluid and the second fluid are at different temperatures . for example , the first fluid can be at a lower temperature than the second fluid so that the second fluid is cooled by the first fluid . during operation , the first fluid enters through the inlet 24 and is distributed by the manifold or plenum 18 to the tubes 12 whose ends are in communication with the plenum 18 . the first fluid flows through the tubes 12 to the second end of the tubes and into the output plenum 20 and then through the outlet 26 . at the same time , the second fluid is introduced into the shell 22 through the inlet 28 . the second fluid flows around and past the tubes 12 in contact with the outer surfaces thereof , exchanging heat with the first fluid flowing through the tubes 12 . the baffles 16 help increase the flow path length of the second fluid , thereby increasing the interaction and residence time between the second fluid in the shell - side and the walls of tubes . the second fluid ultimately exits through the outlet 30 . turning to fig2 - 4 , an improved shell - and - tube heat exchanger 50 is illustrated . the heat exchanger is illustrated as a single - pass , primarily counter - flow ( the two fluids flow primarily in opposite directions ) arrangement . however , it is to be realized that the heat exchanger 50 could also be configured as a multi - pass system , as well as for cross - flow ( the two fluids flow primarily generally perpendicular to one another ), co - current flow ( the fluids primarily flow in the same directions ), or the two fluids flow can flow at any angle therebetween . the heat exchanger 50 includes a shell 52 and a tube bundle 54 that is configured to be disposable in the shell 52 . in the illustrated embodiment , the shell 52 includes an axial inlet 56 at a first end for introducing a first fluid and an axial outlet 58 at the opposite second end for the first fluid . in addition , the shell includes a radial inlet 60 near the first end for introducing a second fluid and a radial outlet 62 near the second end for the second fluid . the shell 52 is configured to enclose the tube bundle 54 and constrain the second fluid to flow along the surfaces of tubes in the tube bundle . the shell 52 can be made of any material that is suitably resistant to corrosion or other effects from contact with the type of second fluid being used , as well as be suitable for the environment in which the heat exchanger 50 is used . for example , the shell can be made of a metal including , but not limited to , steel or aluminum , or from a non - metal material including , but not limited to , a plastic or fiber - reinforced plastic . the tube bundle 54 extends substantially the length of the shell and includes a plurality of hollow tubes 64 for conveying the first fluid through the heat exchanger 50 . the tubes 64 are fixed at a first end 66 to a first tube sheet 68 and fixed at a second end 70 to a second tube sheet 72 . as would be understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art , the tube sheets 68 , 72 are sized to fit within the ends of the shell 52 with a relatively close fit between the outer surfaces of the tube sheets and the inner surface of the shell . when the tube bundle 54 is installed inside the shell 52 , the tube sheets of the tube bundle and the shell collectively define an interior chamber that contains the tubes 64 of the tube bundle . the radial inlet 60 and radial outlet 62 for the second fluid are in fluid communication with the interior chamber . due to the closeness of the fit and / or through additional sealing , leakage of the second fluid from the interior chamber of the shell past the interface between the outer surfaces of the tube sheets 68 , 72 and the inner surface of the shell is prevented . as shown in fig3 , the ends of the tubes 64 penetrate through the tube sheets 68 , 72 via holes in the tube sheets so that inlets / outlets of the tubes are provided on the sides of the tube sheets facing away from the interior chamber of the shell . the ends of the tubes 64 may be attached to the tube sheets in any manner to prevent fluid leakage between the tubes 64 and the holes through the tube sheets . in one example , the ends of the tubes are attached to the tube sheets by fsw . the use of fsw is particularly beneficial where the heat exchanger is used in an environment where it is subject to corrosion , since the fsw process eliminates seams , no dissimilar metals are used and , in the case of saltwater environments , no galvanic cell is created . fsw is a known method for joining elements of the same material . immense friction is provided to the elements such that the immediate vicinity of the joining area is heated to temperatures below the melting point . this softens the adjoining sections , but because the material remains in a solid state , the original material properties are retained . movement or stirring along the weld line forces the softened material from the elements towards the trailing edge , causing the adjacent regions to fuse , thereby forming a weld . fsw reduces or eliminates galvanic corrosion due to contact between dissimilar metals at end joints . furthermore , the resultant weld retains the material properties of the material of the joined sections . further information on fsw is disclosed in u . s . patent application publication number 2009 / 0308582 , titled heat exchanger , filed on jun . 15 , 2009 , which is incorporated herein by reference . the tubes 64 and the tube sheets 68 , 72 are preferably made of the same material , such as , for example , aluminum , aluminum alloy , or marine - grade aluminum alloy . aluminum and most of its alloys , as well as high alloy stainless steels and titanium , are amenable to the use of the fsw joining technique . the tubes and tube sheets can also be made from other materials such as metals including , but not limited to , high alloy stainless steels , carbon steels , titanium , copper , and bronze , and non - metal materials including , but not limited to , thermally enhanced polymers or thermoset plastics . other joining techniques can be used to secure the tubes and the tube sheets , such as expansion , press - fit , brazing , bonding , and welding ( such as fusion welding and lap welding ), depending upon the application and needs of the heat exchanger and the user . in the example illustrated in fig2 - 4 , the tubes 64 are substantially round when viewed in cross - section and substantially linear from the end 66 to the end 70 . however , the shape of the tubes , when viewed in cross - section , can be square or rectangular , triangular , oval shaped , or any other shape , and combinations thereof . in addition , the tubes need not be linear from end to end , but can instead be curved , helical , and other shape deviating from linear . a total of seven tubes 64 are illustrated in this example . however , it is to be realized that a smaller or larger number of tubes can be provided . it is preferred that the tubes be made of a material , such as a metal like aluminum , that permits extrusion or other seamless formation of the tubes . by eliminating seams from the tubes , corrosion is minimized . the tube bundle 54 also includes a baffle assembly 80 integrated therewith . in the illustrated embodiment , the baffle assembly 80 is formed by a plurality of discrete ( i . e . separate ) heat transfer units 82 that are connected to each other so that the baffle assembly 80 has a substantially helix - shape that extends along the majority of the length of the tube bundle 54 around the longitudinal axis of the tube bundle . more preferably the helix - shaped baffle assembly 80 formed by the heat transfer units 82 extends substantially the entire axial length of the tube bundle . the baffle assembly 80 increases the interaction time between the second fluid in the interior chamber of the shell and the walls of the tubes 64 . further , as described further below , the heat transfer units 82 forming the baffle assembly are made of material that is thermally conductive , so that the baffle assembly 80 effectively increases the amount of surface area for thermal contact between the tubes and the second fluid . in addition , the substantially helix - shaped baffle assembly 80 substantially reduces or even eliminates dead spots in the interior chamber of the shell . the helix - shaped baffle assembly 80 can reduce pressure drop , reduce flow restriction of the fluid , and reduce the required force of pumping , yet at the same time provide directional changes of the second fluid to increase interaction between the second fluid and the tubes . thus , the baffle assembly 80 provides the heat exchanger 50 with greater overall heat transfer efficiency between the second fluid and the tubes . in an embodiment , the heat transfer units 82 can be strengthened by the use of solid or perforated plates , made from a thermally conductive material such as aluminum , affixed to the heat transfer units 82 . the plates can be affixed to the units 82 in a periodic pattern along the helix , or they can be affixed to the units in any arrangement one finds provides a suitable strengthening function . the plates can be used to assist in the assembly of the tube bundle and the heat exchanger , and can assist with minimizing the pressure drop on the shell - side flow . fig1 shows an example of such a plate . referring to fig5 together with fig2 - 4 , each heat transfer unit 82 comprises a generally wedge - shaped , planar body 84 having a generally triangular or pie - shape that has radiused inner surfaces to fit the curvature of the outer surfaces of the tubes . as described further below , the unit 82 includes a foam material such as graphite foam or metal foam . preferably , the unit 82 consists essentially of the foam material , and more preferably consists of the foam material . the body 84 includes a first major surface 86 and a second major surface 88 opposite the first major surface . in the illustrated embodiment , the major surfaces 86 , 88 are substantially planar . however , one or more of the major surfaces 86 , 88 need not be planar and could have contours or be shaped in a manner to facilitate fluid flow across or past the unit 82 . fin patterns shown in fig1 a - 17f could be used to enhance flow and heat transfer over the major surfaces 86 , 88 . the fins could extend substantially perpendicular to the surfaces 86 , 88 . alternatively , certain edges of the body 84 could have fin patterns shown in fig1 a thru 17 f to enhance flow and heat transfer from the edges of the heat transfer unit . a support rod hole 90 extends through the body 84 from the first major surface 86 to the second major surface 88 for receipt of a support rod described below . in another embodiment , an open - ended slot is used instead of the hole 90 to receive the support rod . therefore , any opening , such as a hole or slot , could be used to receive the support rod . the perimeter of the body 84 is defined by an arcuate radially outer edge 92 connected to linear side edges 94 , 96 at opposite ends of the outer edge . the side edges 94 , 96 converge toward a common center 98 which is removed during formation of the unit 82 . the side edges 94 , 96 terminate at radiused tube contact surfaces 100 , 102 , respectively , that are positioned on the body 84 opposite the radially outer edge 92 . each of the contact surfaces 100 , 102 is configured to connect to an outer surface of one of the tubes 64 for establishing thermal contact between the heat transfer unit 82 and the tubes . to maximize thermal contact , the contact surfaces 100 , 102 are configured to match the outer surface of the tubes 64 . in the illustrated embodiment , the contact surfaces 100 , 102 are curved , arcuate , or radiused to generally match a portion of the outer surface of the tubes 64 . however , the contact surfaces 100 , 102 can have any shape that corresponds to the shape of the tubes , for example square or rectangular , triangular , oval , or any other shape , and combinations thereof . the body 84 also includes a finger section 104 that in use extends between the two tubes 64 engaged with the contact surfaces 100 , 102 . the finger section 104 includes linear edges 106 , 108 that extend from the contact surfaces 100 , 102 and that terminate at a third tube contact surface 110 that is configured to contact an outer surface of a third tube 64 for establishing thermal contact with the third tube . the contact surface 110 is configured to match the outer surface of the third tube . in the illustrated embodiment , the contact surface is slightly curved or arcuate to generally match a portion of the outer surface of the third tube . however , the contact surface 110 can have any shape that corresponds to the shape of the third tube , for example square or rectangular , triangular , oval , or any other shape , and combinations thereof . in certain embodiments , for example where contact between the body 84 and a third tube is not desired or where there is insufficient space between the tubes for the finger section to extend through , the finger section 104 can be eliminated . fig3 and 4 show the heat transfer units 82 mounted in position on the tube bundle 54 . as shown in fig3 , a plurality of support rods 120 are mounted at one end thereof to the tube sheet 72 and extend substantially parallel to the tubes 64 . the opposite ends of the support rods 120 are unsupported and not fixed to the tube sheet 68 . in another embodiment , the opposite ends of the support rods are also fixed to the tube sheet 68 . in the illustrated embodiment , four support rods 120 are provided and are evenly spaced around the tube bundle 54 . however , a larger or smaller number of support rods 10 can be used based in part on the size of the heat transfer units 82 that are used . the heat transfer units 82 are mounted on the tube bundle 54 with the outer edges 92 thereof facing radially outward . a support rod 120 extends through the hole 90 or other opening and the tube contact surfaces 100 , 102 , 110 are in thermal contact with outer surfaces of three separate tubes 64 . when in thermal contact with the tubes , the major surfaces 86 , 88 form heat transfer surfaces that extend substantially radially from the outer surfaces of the tubes . as used herein , “ in thermal contact ” includes direct or indirect contact between the tube contact surfaces and the tubes to permit transfer of thermal energy between the tube contact surfaces and the tubes . indirect contact between the tube contact surfaces and the tubes could result from the presence of , for example , an adhesive or other material between the tube contact surfaces and the surfaces of the tubes . when a hole is used , the hole 90 is preferably sized such that a relatively tight friction fit is provided with the support rod 120 to prevent axial movement of the heat transfer unit on the rod . if desired , fixation of the heat transfer unit 82 on the rod 120 can be supplemented by fixation means , for example an adhesive between the hole 90 and the rod . instead of the hole , a slot can be formed that receives the support rod which can be secured via a friction fit or bonded using an adhesive . if adhesive bonding is used , the adhesive can be thermally conductive . the thermal conductivity of the adhesive can be increased by incorporating ligaments of highly conductive graphite foam , with the ligaments in contact with the surfaces heat transfer unit ( s ) and the tubes , and the adhesive forming a matrix around the ligaments to keep the ligaments in intimate contact with the tubes and heat transfer units . the ligaments will also enhance bonding strength by increasing resistance to shear , peel and tensile loads . as best seen in fig4 , the heat transfer units 82 are arranged in a helical manner to form the baffle assembly 80 . each heat transfer unit is axially and rotationally offset from an adjacent heat transfer unit with a small overlap region 122 between each pair of adjacent heat transfer units . because of the overlap regions 122 , the baffle assembly formed by the heat transfer units is substantially continuous along the length of the tube bundle 54 . the amount of overlap provided in the region 122 can vary based on the size and depth or thickness of the heat transfer units . in the overlap regions 122 the adjacent heat transfer units can be secured together . for example , the heat transfer units 82 can be frictionally engaged in the overlap regions so that friction maintains the relative rotational positions of the heat transfer units . alternatively , an adhesive or other fixation technique can be provided at the overlap regions to fix the relative rotational positions of the heat transfer units . the periodicity of the helix can be changed by altering the angle of rotation of the heat transfer units . for example , the helix can have an angle of 30 degrees , 60 degrees , 90 degrees , 120 degrees , 150 degrees , 180 degrees and other angles . a person having ordinary skill in the art can determine the desired angles of rotation depending upon , for example , the desired performance of the heat exchanger . in addition , as discussed above , a metal plate ( fig1 ) can be used to strengthen the foam heat transfer units 82 and assist in fabrication of the tube bundle . the support plate can also be embedded within the foam heat transfer unit 82 during formation of the heat transfer units 82 . the metal plate secures the positioning of the tubes in a fixed pattern as an alternating baffle that travels in a helical pattern down the tube axes . the metal plate can be used to overlap two or more foam pieces to provide strength of the graphite core assembly . when the tube bundle is installed in the shell 52 , the heat transfer units 82 are also sized such that the radially outer edges 92 thereof are positioned closely adjacent to , or in contact with , the interior surface of the shell to minimize or prevent the second fluid flowing in the shell from flowing between the radially outer edges 92 and the interior surface . this forces the majority of the fluid to flow past the tubes 64 in a generally spiral flow path defined by the heat transfer units 82 . in some embodiments , the heat transfer units 82 need not overlap , but can instead be sized and mounted so as to have gaps between adjacent heat transfer units to permit some of the fluid to flow axially between the adjacent heat transfer units . the unit 82 ( as well as the heat transfer units described below ) includes , consists essentially of , or consists entirely of , a foam material such as graphite foam or metal foam . the term foam material is used herein to describe a material having closed cells , open cells , coarse porous reticulated structure , and / or combinations thereof . examples of metal foam include , but are not limited to , aluminum foam , titanium foam , bronze foam or copper foam . in an embodiment , the foam material does not include metal such as aluminum , titanium , bronze or copper . in one embodiment , the foam material is preferably graphite foam having an open porous structure . graphite foam is advantageous because graphite foam has high thermal conductivity , a mass that is significantly less than metal foam materials , and has advantageous physical properties , such as being able to absorb vibrations ( e . g . sound ). graphite foam can be configured in a wide range of geometries based on application needs and / or heat transfer requirements . graphite foam can be used in exemplary applications such as power electronics cooling , transpiration , evaporative cooling , radiators , space radiators , emi shielding , thermal and acoustic signature management , and battery cooling . fig6 a - e depict an exemplary process of how the heat transfer units 82 can be made . it is to be realized that this process is exemplary only and that other processes can be used . the heat transfer units 82 can be made by a process that stamps a foam material into a plurality of the wedge - shaped bodies 84 . fig6 a shows a die 128 for simultaneously punching a plurality of the bodies 84 from a circular foam substrate 130 ( fig6 d ). in fig6 b , the foam substrate is shown as stamped by the die . fig6 c shows the stamped material being pulled up and transitioned with the press to force the foam from the die . fig6 d and 6e show the foam pressed out of the die 128 , creating a plurality of the wedge - shaped bodies 84 . in the illustrated example , five wedge - shaped bodies 84 are formed with each stamping sequence . however , a smaller or larger number of bodies 84 can be formed if desired . a clover - leaf shaped remainder 132 is left at the center of the substrate 130 which can be discarded . fig6 d and 6e show the bodies 84 without the holes 90 . the holes 90 could be formed directly by the die 128 . alternatively , if the die does not form the holes , the holes can be created in the bodies 84 after the stamping process through a separate machining process . fig7 shows another embodiment of a foam heat transfer unit 150 disposed on a tube 64 of a tube bundle of a shell - and - tube heat exchanger . the heat transfer unit 150 comprises a generally cylindrical body with a central passage through which the tube 64 extends . the heat transfer unit 150 is in thermal contact with , directly or indirectly , the outer surface of the tube 64 . the body of the heat transfer unit 150 includes opposite end surfaces 152 that form heat transfer surfaces extending substantially radially from the outer surface of the tube . the heat transfer unit 150 can be fixed on the tube to maintain the axial position thereof in any suitable manner , for example by a friction fit or by using an adhesive . axially extending channels 154 are formed in the body that extend between the end surfaces 152 . the channels 154 are evenly circumferentially spaced from one another around the body . in the illustrated embodiment , four channels 154 are shown , although a smaller or larger number of channels 154 can be used . in fig7 , a pair of the heat transfer units 150 are shown disposed on the tube 64 , spaced from each other with an axial gap between the heat transfer units . the two heat transfer units are rotated , for example , approximately 45 degrees relative to each other . however , the rotational angle between the heat transfer units can be more or less than 45 degrees , with the angle chosen based on , for example , the number of grooves and the spacing of the heat transfer units on the tube 64 . as shown by the arrows in fig7 representing the flow of fluid , a fluid flowing through the channel 154 impacts the surface of the adjacent heat transfer unit between the channels 154 causing the fluid to change direction in order to flow into the channels 154 of the adjacent heat transfer unit 150 . additional heat transfer units 150 can be disposed along the entire length of the tube 64 , spaced from each other and rotated relative to a preceding heat transfer unit , similar to that shown in fig7 . fig8 shows an embodiment of a foam heat transfer unit 160 disposed around the tube 64 of a tube bundle of a shell - and - tube heat exchanger . the heat transfer unit 160 is configured as a cylindrical sleeve with at least one end surface 162 that forms a heat transfer surface extending substantially radially from the outer surface of the tube . the heat transfer unit 160 can extend along any length of the tube , and preferably extends along substantially the entire length of the tube . the heat transfer unit 160 can be fixed on the tube to maintain the axial position thereof in any suitable manner , for example by a friction fit or by using an adhesive . in another embodiment , the heat transfer unit 160 is formed by two or more semi - circular sections that are fixed to the outer surface of the tube to form a sleeve . in addition , the sections can be spaced from one another to form one or more grooves between the sections that extend along the axis of the tube 64 . with each of the heat transfer units 150 , 160 , they can be used by themselves , with each other , or with the heat transfer units 82 . in addition , when the heat transfer units 150 , 160 are mounted on the tubes 64 , the outer surfaces of the heat transfer units 150 , 160 preferably are in thermal contact with , directly or indirectly , the outer surfaces of the heat transfer units 150 , 160 of one or more adjacent tubes 64 . fig9 shows an embodiment of a portion of a tube bundle 170 of a shell - and - tube heat exchanger with a plurality of tubes 172 similar in function to the tubes 64 . a plurality of identical foam heat transfer units 174 are illustrated as being engaged with the tubes 172 and spaced along the length of the tubes . the heat transfer units 174 have bodies that are constructed as cradles or frames so that each heat transfer unit 174 is configured to engage with a plurality of the tubes 172 . in particular , the body of each heat transfer unit 174 is formed with a pair of outer tube contact surfaces 176 a , 176 b and three inner tube contact surfaces 178 a , 178 b , 178 c . however , the heat transfer units 174 can be configured to engage with more or less tubes as well . each heat transfer unit 174 also includes generally planar end surfaces that form heat transfer surfaces extending substantially radially from the outer surface of the tubes . fig9 shows a first set of the heat transfer units on one side of the tubes 172 with the outer contact surfaces 176 a , 176 b facing upward , and a second set of the heat transfer units on the opposite side of the tubes 172 with the outer contact surfaces 176 a , 176 b facing downward . the first set of heat transfer units is axially or longitudinally offset from the heat transfer units of the second set . in the embodiment illustrated in fig9 , seven tubes 172 can be engaged with the heat transfer units 174 , including two tubes engaged with the tube contact surfaces 176 a , 176 b of the upper set , two tubes engaged with the tube contact surfaces 176 a , 176 b of the lower set , and three tubes engaged with the inner tube contact surfaces 178 a , 178 b , 178 c of the upper and lower set . it is to be realized that the heat transfer units 174 can be configured to engage with a larger or smaller number of tubes . depending upon the layout of the heat transfer units 174 , the heat transfer units can create offsets , spirals or other flow patterns , in either counter , co - current or cross - flow arrangements . fig1 a - f illustrate examples of patterns formed by different configurations of the foam heat transfer units 174 from fig9 . for example , as shown in fig1 a , the heat transfer units can be arranged into a baffled “ offset ” configuration . fig1 b shows the heat transfer units arranged disposed in an offset configuration . when viewed from the top , each of the heat transfer units may have the shape of , but not limited to , square , rectangular , circular , elliptical , triangular , diamond , or any combination thereof . fig1 c shows the heat transfer units arranged into a triangular - wave configuration . other types of wave configurations , such as for example , square waves , sinusoidal waves , sawtooth waves , and / or combinations thereof are also possible . fig1 d shows the heat transfer units arranged into an offset chevron configuration . fig1 e shows the heat transfer units arranged into a large helical spiral . fig1 f shows the heat transfer units arranged into a wavy arrangement or individual helical spirals . fig1 a shows another embodiment of a tube bundle that has a plurality of tubes 190 arranged with an equilateral triangular pitch ( i . e . the space between the tubes is generally an equilateral triangle ). fig1 b shows tubes 190 of a tube bundle arranged with a square pitch , while fig1 c shows tubes 190 of a tube bundle arranged with a staggered square pitch . in fig1 a - c , foam heat transfer units 192 are shaped to fit in the pitch space between the tubes . for example , as shown in fig1 a , foam heat transfer units 192 are disposed between the tubes 190 and have surfaces that are in thermal contact with the tubes . each of the heat transfer units 192 comprises a generally triangular body , that can be radiused to the curvature of the tubes , with a generally triangular cross - section , and with the three surfaces of the triangular body in thermal contact with , directly or indirectly , three separate tubes 190 . the heat transfer units 192 may be arranged as required for heat transfer efficiency and / or providing directional flow of the fluid outside the tubes 190 . for example , the heat transfer units 192 can be arranged in any configuration to mimic a helix , multiple helix , offset baffle , offset blocks , or other patterns as shown in fig1 a - f . a person of ordinary skill in the art would realize that the tubes can be arranged with other pitch shapes between the tubes , and that the foam heat transfer units can have other corresponding shapes as well . with reference to fig1 and 12 , another embodiment of a shell - and - tube heat exchanger 200 is illustrated that employs a tube bundle that includes twisted tubes 202 together with a foam heat transfer unit 204 . this embodiment has a number of advantages , including strengthening the tube core , eliminating the need for baffles , minimizing vibrations , and enhancing heat transfer on both the tube side ( i . e . on the helical tubes ) and on the shell side ( the foam heat transfer unit ). the heat exchanger 200 includes a shell 206 that has axial inlets and outlets at each end for a first fluid to flow into and out of the tubes 202 . tubes sheets , similar to the tube sheets 68 , 72 would be provided at each end of the tube bundle , would be attached to each tube 202 , and would fit within and close off the ends of the shell 206 . the shell also includes a radial inlet 208 and a radial outlet 210 for a second fluid . in this embodiment , the tubes 202 are twisted helically around the foam heat transfer unit 204 along the length of the heat transfer unit 204 . the heat transfer unit 204 comprises a central , solid body of foam such that at any cross - section of the tube bundle , the foam body forms a heat transfer surface extending substantially radially from the outer surface of the tube ( s ). in fig1 , the heat transfer unit 204 is represented by the dashed line extending the length of the shell 206 . the dashed line is not intended to imply that the heat transfer unit 204 is broken into sections or is discontinuous ( although it is possible that the heat transfer unit 204 could be broken into separate section or made discontinuous if desired ). the helical arrangement of tubes 202 enhances heat flow between the fluid flowing in the tubes and the fluid flowing in the shell outside of the tubes , by breaking up boundary layers inside and / or outside the tubes and combining axial and radial flow of the fluid along and around the outer surface of the tubes . in addition , the use of a baffle can be eliminated if desired . further , the tubes 202 could be twisted about their own axes as well . although fig1 and 12 show six tubes 202 , a smaller or larger number of tubes can be used . for example , as discussed further below with respect to fig1 - 15 , three tubes can be helically wound around a central , solid heat transfer unit . fig1 is a cross - sectional view of another embodiment of a tube bundle that contains many axial tubes 222 disposed in a shell 224 . two different implementations of the twisted or helical tube concept are illustrated . the triangle 226 in fig1 illustrates three tubes 228 helically twisted about a central , solid body foam heat transfer unit 230 . this is illustrated more fully in fig1 which additionally shows an optional sleeve 232 disposed around the assembly formed by the tubes 228 and the heat transfer unit 230 to form a tube - within - a - tube construction . the heat transfer unit 230 comprises a central , solid body of foam such that at any cross - section , the foam body forms a heat transfer surface extending substantially radially from the outer surface of the tube ( s ). in fig1 , the heat transfer unit 230 is represented by the dashed line extending the length of the sleeve 232 . the dashed line is not intended to imply that the heat transfer unit 230 is broken into sections or is discontinuous ( although it is possible that the heat transfer unit 230 could be broken into separate section or made discontinuous if desired ). returning to fig1 , a hexagonal arrangement 240 of the twisted tube concept is illustrated and shown more fully in fig1 . in the hexagonal arrangement 240 , a tube within a tube concept is provided similar to the single arrangement shown in fig1 , wherein a hexagonal pattern of six tubes - within - tubes assemblies 242 are used . each assembly 242 includes a plurality of tubes 244 , for example three tubes , helically twisted about a central , solid body foam heat transfer unit 246 , with the tubes 244 and the heat transfer unit 246 disposed within a larger fluid carrying tube 248 . so the first fluid flows within the tubes 244 as well as within the tubes 248 in contact with the outside surfaces of the tubes 244 . this twisted tube concept can be used by itself or in combination with any of the embodiments previously described herein . for example , fig9 shows an arrangement similar to fig1 , with a plurality of the tubes 228 twisted helically around the heat transfer unit 230 , and the tubes 228 and unit 230 disposed inside one of the tubes 172 to function together with the heat transfer units 174 at increasing the effectiveness of the heat exchanger . the heat transfer units 204 , 230 have been described above as being solid bodies . however , the heat transfer units 204 , 230 need not be solid . instead , the heat transfer units 204 , 230 can function as fluid carrying fluid distribution tubes which would be useful for creating a baffle - less design in a spray evaporator . for example , with reference to fig1 , the heat transfer unit 204 can carry a fluid and be configured to spray the fluid outward as shown by the arrows onto the surfaces of the tubes 202 . the sprayed fluid exchanges heat with the tube surfaces , causing some or all of the sprayed fluid to change phase into a vapor . likewise , as illustrated by the arrows in fig1 and 14 , the heat transfer unit 230 can be configured to spray fluid outward onto the tubes . one can also alternate foam and spray tubes too in various configurations . fig1 illustrates another embodiment of a shell - and - tube heat exchanger that uses rectangular blocks of foam heat transfer units 300 that are in thermal contact with , directly or indirectly , a plurality of axial tubes 302 . the blocks would extend some or all of the axial length of the tubes 302 . the blocks form a staggered diagonal baffle arrangement which is useful in applications where the second fluid flows in a cross - flow direction relative to the flow of the first fluid through the tubes 302 . however , other heat transfer unit configurations and arrangements , as well as other flow patterns , are possible . all of the shell - and - tube heat exchangers described herein operate as follows . a first fluid is introduced into one axial end of the tubes of the tube bundles , with the fluid flowing through the tubes to an outlet end where the first fluid exits the heat exchanger . the tubes can be single pass or multi - pass . simultaneously , a second fluid is introduced into the shell . the second fluid can flow counter to the first fluid , in the same direction as the first fluid , or in a cross - flow direction relative to the flow direction of the first fluid . as the second fluid flows through the shell , it contacts the outer surfaces of the tubes and / or the surfaces of the heat transfer units . because the first fluid flows within the tubes , separated from the second fluid , heat is exchanged between the first and second fluids . depending upon the application , the first fluid can be at a higher temperature than the second fluid , in which case heat is transferred from the first fluid to the second fluid via the tubes and the heat transfer units . alternatively , the second fluid can be at a higher temperature than the first fluid , in which case heat is transferred from the second fluid to the first fluid via the tubes and the heat transfer units . the first and second fluids can be either liquids , gases / vapor or a binary mixture thereof . one example of a first fluid is water , such as sea water , and one example of a second fluid is ammonia in liquid or vapor form , which can be used in an ocean thermal energy conversion system . the examples disclosed in this application are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not limitative . the scope of the invention is indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description ; and all changes which come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are intended to be embraced therein .	5
with reference to fig1 , the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device disclosed herein generally includes a proximal handle 500 that provides a surgeon with means to manipulate the endoscopic portion of the device at the site of repair ; a flexible shaft 510 that includes multiple actuators that provide means for communicating such manipulation to the endoscopic portion of the device ; and a distal tip 520 that carries suture anchors , knotting elements , and the like to the site of repair . flexible shaft 510 may be adapted for insertion into the working channel of a flexible endoscope ( not shown ) such as a gastroscope or a colonoscope by being flexible , having an outer diameter in a range of about 2 . 0 to about 3 . 8 millimeters , and having a length of approximately 1 . 5 meters . distal tip 520 may be similarly adapted for insertion into the working channel of a flexible endoscope by having a maximum outer diameter in a range of about 2 . 0 to about 3 . 8 millimeters . the reader will appreciate that devices having various diameters and / or lengths may be inserted through other endoscopic instruments , such as laparoscopes , depending on the requirements of the surgical procedure to be performed . with reference to fig2 and 3 , in one aspect of the device the distal tip 520 of the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device may include a cannulated needle 530 , an anchor deployment actuator 540 , a knotting element deployment actuator 550 , a first knotting element portion 560 , and a second knotting element portion 570 . cannulated needle 530 may be manufactured from 19 gage stainless steel hypodermic tubing having an outer diameter of approximately 0 . 043 inches ( 1 . 09 millimeters ) and a wall thickness of approximately 0 . 003 inches ( 0 . 076 millimeters ). the hypodermic tubing may extend through flexible shaft 510 to proximal handle 500 , or alternately may be joined to a second length of metal or extruded plastic polymer tubing extending through flexile shaft 510 to proximal handle 500 . cannulated needle 530 may be joined to such a second length of tubing by welding , gluing , or other methods known in the art . the distal end of cannulated needle 530 may optionally be ground to form a penetrating tip . cannulated needle 530 may include a central channel 532 , one or more shear ports 534 , a suture slot 536 extending proximally from the distal end of the needle , and a detent 538 . central channel 532 is open to the environment at the distal end of cannulated needle 530 and may extend proximally to handle 500 . shear ports 534 in cannulated needle 530 may be disposed around a portion of the needle to provide a means for attaching first knotting element portion 560 to the needle . suture slot 536 may be provided as a means for routing sutures 582 extending from suture anchors 580 out of central channel 532 and away from the distal tip of cannulated needle 530 . such routing may advantageously reduce interference between cannulated needle 530 , suture 582 , and suture anchor 580 during the deployment of an anchor , and may advantageously reduce the potential for the distal tip of the needle to sever sutures 582 that would otherwise be routed around that tip . optionally , the edges of suture slot 536 may be coated with a protective material 539 such as an epoxy resin or a plastic polymer to reduce any potential for the edges of suture slot 536 to sever a suture 582 during operation of the device . detent 538 may be disposed around a portion of cannulated needle 530 to provide a means for attaching and retaining second knotting element portion 570 . detent 538 may be formed as an integral portion of cannulated needle 530 , or alternately may be an annular ring of material affixed to the needle by gluing , welding , or other methods known in the art . suture anchors 580 may be loaded into central channel 532 and each associated suture 582 may be routed to pass through first knotting element portion 560 and extend outward from second knotting element portion 570 at a location between first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 . if cannulated needle 530 includes a suture slot , sutures 582 may additionally be routed to pass through suture slot 536 between first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 and extend outward from second knotting element portion 570 . the remainder of each suture 582 may extend alongside knotting element actuator 550 and flexible shaft 510 within the working channel of the endoscope , exiting the instrument adjacent to the proximal handle 500 of the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device . anchor deployment actuator 540 may be manufactured from 19 gage stainless steel wire having an outer diameter of approximately 0 . 036 inches ( 0 . 912 millimeters ). the actuator 540 may slide within central channel 532 , and may extend from approximately the distal end of cannulated needle 530 , through central channel 532 and flexible shaft 510 , to proximal handle 500 . the actuator 540 should have a length sufficient to permit suture anchors 580 to be fully ejected from cannulated needle 530 during a surgical procedure . the actuator 540 may be advanced within central channel 532 in a stepwise manner through the manipulation of a plunger or trigger control on proximal handle 500 , or by other control means known in the art . as anchor deployment actuator 540 is advanced , the distal end of the actuator abuts a suture anchor 580 , and sufficient advancement will cause the most distally disposed anchor 580 within cannulated needle 530 to be ejected from central channel 532 . knotting element deployment actuator 550 may be manufactured from a helically wound stainless steel wire or other suitable materials known in the art . the actuator 550 may slide over cannulated needle 530 , and may extend from distal tip 520 , abutting second knotting element portion 570 , to proximal handle 500 . the knotting element deployment actuator 550 , anchor deployment actuator 540 , and cannulated needle 530 may be held in a coaxial relationship along flexible shaft 510 between distal tip 520 and proximal handle 500 . the actuator 550 should have a length sufficient to permit first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 to be deployed off the distal end of cannulated needle 530 at the completion of a knotting step in a surgical procedure . the actuator 550 may be advanced over cannulated needle 530 through the manipulation of a control on proximal handle 500 such as a slider or a ratcheting trigger , or by other control means known in the art . with reference to fig3 and 4 , first knotting element portion 560 may be configured as a partially hollow cylinder having an outer wall 562 and one or more shear posts 564 which may extend inward from outer wall 562 to engage with shear ports 534 of cannulated needle 530 . first knotting element portion 560 may provide an interior suture path 566 which contributes to a knotting action described later . first knotting element portion 560 may be constructed from various plastic polymers approved for medical use . the width and number of shear posts 564 may be varied along with other factors , such as the elasticity of the material used to construct the element , to vary the shear force necessary to overcome the engagement of shear posts 564 with shear ports 534 . the reader will appreciate that the configuration of this element as a partially hollow cylinder is merely a matter of convenience , and that a variety of shapes may be adapted to define an interior suture path 566 and achieve similar functional results . second knotting element portion 570 may also be configured as a generally hollow cylinder having an outer wall 572 and one or more retention posts 574 which may extend inward and engage with detent 538 of cannulated needle 530 . optionally , a single retention post 574 may extend inward from the periphery of outer wall 572 towards cannulated needle 530 , forming a retention post similar in structure to a proximal wall . second knotting element portion 570 may be constructed from various plastic polymers approved for medical use . the width and number of retention posts may be varied along with other factors , such as the degree to which detent 538 projects outward from cannulated needle 530 and the elasticity of the material used to construct the element , to vary the force necessary to overcome the engagement of retention posts 574 with detent 538 . the reader will appreciate that the configuration of this element as a generally hollow cylinder is again merely a matter of convenience , and that a variety of shapes may be selected to complement the shape of first knotting element portion 560 and achieve similar functional results . typically , outer wall 572 of second knotting element portion 570 has an inner diameter approximately equal to the outer diameter of outer wall 562 of first knotting element portion 560 with the addition of a gap , d . preferably , outer wall 572 has an inner diameter in the range of about the outer diameter of outer wall 562 to about the sum of the outer diameter of outer wall 562 and the diameter of a suture line . the knotting element may be engaged by slidingly joining first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 , such that first knotting element portion 560 nests within second knotting element portion 570 , leaving a suture gap 576 having a width approximately equal to gap d defined between the outer surface of outer wall 562 of first knotting element portion 560 and the inner surface of outer wall 572 of second knotting element portion 570 . sutures 582 extending through interior suture path 566 of first knotting element portion 560 are bent by the joining of the knotting element portions to conform to an “ s ”- shaped path that runs through interior suture path 566 , around the proximal end of first knotting element portion 560 , through suture gap 576 , around the distal end of second knotting element portion 570 , and along flexible shaft 510 towards proximal handle 500 . sutures 582 are retained or “ knotted ” within the joined knotting element portions by frictional engagement with the outer surface of outer wall 562 of first knotting element portion 560 and the inner surface of outer wall 572 of second knotting element portion 570 , and optionally by engagement between the proximal end of first knotting element portion 560 and the distal surface of retention posts 574 . similarly , first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 are retained in a joined relation by frictional engagement with each other and sutures 582 . optionally , the outer surface of outer wall 562 of first knotting element portion 560 and the inner surface of outer wall 572 of second knotting element portion 570 may be textured , coated , or otherwise modified to increase the apparent coefficient of friction between the two surfaces , and between the surfaces and sutures 582 . a plurality of suture anchors 580 may be loaded into central channel 532 of cannulated needle 530 . with reference to fig5 , such suture anchors may include conventional t - tags having a hollow cylindrical body 584 including a longitudinal slot 586 extending along approximately one half of the length of the body . suture 582 may be attached to suture anchor 580 by passing the suture through body 584 and forming a knot 588 in suture 582 larger than the diameter of body 584 , or alternately by crimping , gluing , or otherwise affixing suture 582 within body 584 adjacent to slot 586 . the reader will appreciate that a variety of different suture anchors may be deployed from the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device disclosed herein , including but not limited to the expandable suture anchors disclosed in my copending application , u . s . patent application ser . no . 11 / 274 , 358 , entitled “ expandable suture anchor ” and filed on nov . 15 , 2005 , the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference . with reference to fig6 and 7 , in an additional aspect of the device the distal tip 520 of the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device may include a cannulated needle 630 , an anchor deployment actuator 640 , a knotting element deployment actuator 650 , a first knotting element portion 660 , and a second knotting element portion 670 . cannulated needle 630 may be manufactured from 19 gage stainless steel hypodermic tubing having an outer diameter of approximately 0 . 043 inches ( 1 . 09 millimeters ) and a wall thickness of approximately 0 . 003 inches ( 0 . 076 millimeters ). the hypodermic tubing may extend through flexible shaft 510 to proximal handle 500 , or alternately may be joined to a second length of metal or extruded plastic polymer tubing extending through flexile shaft 510 to proximal handle 500 . cannulated needle 630 may be joined to such a second length of tubing by welding , gluing , or other methods known in the art . the distal end of cannulated needle 630 may optionally be ground to form a penetrating tip . cannulated needle 630 may include a central channel 632 and a suture slot 636 extending proximally from the distal end of the needle . central channel 632 is open to the environment at the distal end of cannulated needle 630 and may extend proximally to handle 500 . suture slot 636 may be provided as a means for routing sutures 582 extending from suture anchors 580 out of central channel 632 and away from the distal tip of cannulated needle 630 . such routing may advantageously reduce interference between cannulated needle 630 , suture 582 , and suture anchor 580 during the deployment of an anchor , and may advantageously reduce the potential for the distal tip of the needle to sever sutures 582 that would otherwise be routed around that tip . optionally , the edges of suture slot 636 may be coated with a protective material 639 such as an epoxy resin or a plastic polymer to reduce any potential for the edges of suture slot 536 to sever a suture 582 during operation of the device . suture anchors 580 may be loaded into central channel 632 and each associated suture 582 may be routed to pass through first knotting element portion 660 and extend outward from second knotting element portion 670 at a location between first knotting element portion 660 and second knotting element portion 670 . if cannulated needle 630 includes a suture slot , sutures 582 may additionally be routed to pass through suture slot 636 between first knotting element portion 660 and second knotting element portion 670 and extend outward from second knotting element portion 670 . the remainder of each suture 582 may extend alongside knotting element actuator 650 and flexible shaft 510 within the working channel of the endoscope , exiting the instrument adjacent to the proximal handle 500 of the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device . anchor deployment actuator 640 may be manufactured from 19 gage stainless steel wire having an outer diameter of approximately 0 . 036 inches ( 0 . 912 millimeters ). the actuator 640 may slide within central channel 632 , and may extend from approximately the distal end of cannulated needle 630 , through central channel 632 and flexible shaft 510 , to proximal handle 500 . the actuator 640 should have a length sufficient to permit suture anchors 580 to be fully ejected from cannulated needle 630 during a surgical procedure . the actuator 640 may be advanced within central channel 632 in a stepwise manner through the manipulation of a plunger or trigger control on proximal handle 500 , or by other control means known in the art . as anchor deployment actuator 640 is advanced , the distal end of the actuator abuts a suture anchor 580 , and sufficient advancement will cause the most distally disposed anchor 580 within cannulated needle 630 to be ejected from central channel 632 . knotting element deployment actuator 650 may be manufactured from a helically wound stainless steel wire or other suitable materials known in the art . the actuator 650 may slide over cannulated needle 630 , and may extend from distal tip 520 , abutting second knotting element portion 670 , to proximal handle 500 . the knotting element deployment actuator 650 , anchor deployment actuator 640 , and cannulated needle 630 may be held in a coaxial relationship along flexible shaft 510 between distal tip 520 and proximal handle 500 . the actuator 650 should have a length sufficient to permit first knotting element portion 660 and second knotting element portion 670 to be deployed off the distal end of cannulated needle 630 at the completion of a knotting step in a surgical procedure . the actuator 650 may be advanced over cannulated needle 630 through the manipulation of a control on proximal handle 500 such as a slider or a ratcheting trigger , or by other control means known in the art . with reference to fig3 and 4 , first knotting element portion 660 may be configured as a partially hollow cylinder having an outer wall 662 and one or more retention posts 664 which may extend inward from outer wall 662 to abut cannulated needle 630 . first knotting element portion 660 may be engaged with cannulated needle 630 by affixing one or more retention posts 664 to cannulated needle 630 at the point where the posts abut the needle with a frangible layer of adhesive 634 . first knotting element portion 660 may provide an interior suture path 666 which contributes to a knotting action described later . first knotting element portion 660 may be constructed from various plastic polymers approved for medical use . the width and number of retention posts 664 may be varied along with other factors , such as the strength of the frangible adhesive 634 binding the posts to cannulated needle 630 , to vary the shear force necessary to overcome the engagement of retention posts 664 and cannulated needle 630 . the reader will appreciate that the configuration of this element as a partially hollow cylinder is merely a matter of convenience , and that a variety of shapes may be adapted to define an interior suture path 666 and achieve similar functional results . second knotting element portion 670 may also be configured as a generally hollow cylinder having an outer wall 672 and one or more retention posts 674 which may extend inward and abut cannulated needle 630 . optionally , a single retention post 674 may extend inward from the periphery of outer wall 672 towards cannulated needle 630 , forming a retention post similar in structure to a proximal wall . second knotting element portion 670 may be engaged with cannulated needle 630 by affixing one or more retention posts 674 to cannulated needle 630 at the point where the posts abut the needle with a frangible layer of adhesive 638 . second knotting element portion 670 may be constructed from various plastic polymers approved for medical use . the width and number of retention posts 674 may be varied along with other factors , such as the strength of the frangible adhesive 638 binding the posts to cannulated needle 630 , to vary the force necessary to overcome the engagement of the retention posts 674 with cannulated needle 630 . the reader will appreciate that the configuration of this element as a generally hollow cylinder is again merely a matter of convenience , and that a variety of shapes may be selected to complement the shape of first knotting element portion 660 and achieve similar functional results . typically , outer wall 672 of second knotting element portion 670 has an inner diameter approximately equal to the outer diameter of outer wall 662 of first knotting element portion 660 with the addition of a gap , d . preferably , outer wall 672 has an inner diameter in the range of about the outer diameter of outer wall 662 to about the sum of the outer diameter of outer wall 662 and the diameter of a suture line . the knotting element may be engaged by slidingly joining first knotting element portion 660 and second knotting element portion 670 , such that first knotting element portion 660 nests within second knotting element portion 670 , leaving a suture gap 676 having a width approximately equal to gap d defined between the outer surface of outer wall 662 of first knotting element portion 660 and the inner surface of outer wall 672 of second knotting element portion 670 . sutures 582 extending through interior suture path 666 of first knotting element portion 660 are bent by the joining of the knotting element portions to conform to an “ s ”- shaped path that runs through interior suture path 666 , around the proximal end of first knotting element portion 660 , through suture gap 676 , around the distal end of second knotting element portion 670 , and along flexible shaft 510 towards proximal handle 500 . sutures 582 are retained or “ knotted ” within the joined knotting element portions by frictional engagement with the outer surface of outer wall 662 of first knotting element portion 660 and the inner surface of outer wall 672 of second knotting element portion 670 , and optionally by engagement between the proximal end of first knotting element portion 660 and the distal surface of retention posts 674 . similarly , first knotting element portion 660 and second knotting element portion 670 are retained in a joined relation by frictional engagement with each other and sutures 582 . optionally , the outer surface of outer wall 662 of first knotting element portion 660 and the inner surface of outer wall 672 of second knotting element portion 670 may be textured , coated , or otherwise modified to increase the apparent coefficient of friction between the two surfaces , and between the surfaces and sutures 582 . the knotting element and suture anchor applicator device disclosed herein may be used to endoscopically appose tissues in the following illustrative , but not limiting manner . a surgeon may guide an endoscopic instrument , such as a gastroscope and examination tube , through the gastrointestinal tract of a patient . the surgeon may then use the endoscopic instrument to survey the patent &# 39 ; s internal tissues , such as a stomach , and to visualize damaged tissue , such as an ulcerated region . to effect a repair , the surgeon may obtain a knotting element and suture anchor applicator loaded with a plurality of suture anchors 580 and associated sutures 582 , such as the t - tags described previously , and insert distal tip 520 and flexible shaft 510 of the device into the working channel of the instrument , guiding distal tip 520 to the site of repair . the surgeon may then manipulate distal tip 520 to cause cannulated needle 530 to penetrate the tissues adjacent to the damaged tissue , and manipulate suture anchor actuator 540 to deploy a first suture anchor 580 onto a distal surface of , or optionally within , a first portion of the tissue to be apposed . the surgeon may then manipulate distal tip 520 to cause cannulated needle 530 to penetrate other tissues adjacent to the damaged tissue , and manipulate suture anchor actuator 540 to deploy a second suture anchor 580 onto a distal surface of , or optionally within , a second portion of the tissue to be apposed without withdrawing distal tip 520 from the endoscopic instrument to swap in a second device or to reload a suture anchor 580 into cannulated needle 530 . thus , the surgeon may emplace a plurality of suture anchors 580 without withdrawing the device . preferably , the knotting element and suture anchor applicator is loaded with 2 , 3 , or 4 suture anchors 580 and associated sutures 582 . after deploying the last suture anchor 580 , the surgeon may manipulate the proximal ends of the sutures 582 to appose the tissues at the site of repair . when the tissues have been properly apposed , the surgeon may “ fire ” the knotting element by manipulating knotting element actuator 550 and applying force to second knotting element portion 570 , which is in engagement with cannulated needle 530 as described previously . if sufficient force is applied , retention posts 574 of second knotting element portion 570 may distort and become released from engagement with detent 538 of cannulated needle 530 , permitting second knotting element portion 570 to slide towards the distal end of the needle until it abuts first knotting element portion 560 , which is in engagement with cannulated needle 530 as described previously . the joining of first knotting element portion 560 and second knotting element portion 570 will “ knot ” sutures 582 as described previously . continued manipulation of knotting element actuator 550 will transmit force through second knotting element portion 570 to first knotting element portion 560 , transforming the applied force into a shear force acting across shear posts 564 . if sufficient force is transmitted , shear posts 564 may shear and become released from engagement with shear ports 534 of cannulated needle 530 , permitting first knotting element portion 560 and joined second knotting element portion 570 to slide towards the distal end of the needle until the joined knotting element portions are deployed off the distal end of cannulated needle 530 . the surgeon may withdraw distal tip 520 and flexible shaft 510 from the endoscopic instrument to clear the working channel of the instrument in preparation for additional procedures or in preparation for the withdrawal of the instrument . although various aspects of the disclosed device have been shown and described herein , modifications may occur to those skilled in the art upon reading this specification . the present application includes such modifications as are within the spirit of the invention , and is to be limited only by the scope of the appended claims .	0
the present invention provides the capability to capture and store data object definitions in a database in a less costly and less time - consuming manner than previous techniques . using the present invention , after an initial set of metadata definitions has been captured , only those definitions that have changed since the last time the definitions were captured are again captured and stored . the present invention provides a way to store only changed definitions , which allows efficient retrieval of the complete set of definitions as they existed at each point of capture , and algorithms for efficiently determining which definitions have changed since the last point of capture . this present invention provides an efficient technique for capturing and storing the definitions of a set of data items , then repeating the process later to create a new set of definitions , and so on . the technique provides advantages in both execution time and storage space over the obvious approach of capturing and storing all the definitions , each time . an example of a system 100 in which the present invention may be implemented is shown in fig1 . system 100 includes one or more data items 102 , characteristics 104 , delta values 106 , and baselines 108 . a data item 102 is a collection of related information stored in a computer . the individual pieces of information are the data item &# 39 ; s characteristics 104 . these characteristics may change over time . data items may be created and destroyed over time . for example , the definition of a metadata object such as a table or index is a data item . its characteristics may include its name , owner , columns , constraints and so on . key characteristics are a subset of a data item &# 39 ; s characteristics that uniquely identify this data item among all others . for a given data item , the values of the key characteristics may not change during its lifetime . ( if the value of a key characteristic does change , this is equivalent to destroying the data item and creating a new data item identified by the new key characteristic values .) it must be possible to efficiently and unambiguously sort a collection of data items based on their key values . for example , key characteristics may include a metadata object &# 39 ; s type , owner , and name , such as table scott . tiger or user scott . a delta value 106 is a single , easily obtained value that is uniquely associated with a particular set of data item characteristic values . for a given data item , the delta value 106 is guaranteed to change each time one or more characteristic values changes . ( if the set of characteristic values later returns to a previous configuration , the delta value 106 may or may not be the same as its previous value ; the technique works in either case .) for example , a delta value 106 may be formed using a last - ddl timestamp indicating the last time that a metadata object &# 39 ; s definition was modified , or a hash key calculated from the object &# 39 ; s definition . a last - ddl timestamp distinguishes one version of a data item from other versions of the same data item that were modified at an earlier or later time . other data items may have the same last - ddl timestamp . a hash key delta value , on the other hand , is uniquely associated with a single version of a single data item . a baseline 108 is specification for capturing data items from a computer , including a source 110 of data items , such as a database , and a filter 112 , which data item key values must pass in order to be included . for example , the filter 112 may specify inclusion of indexes and tables owned by user scott . a baseline &# 39 ; s source 110 and filter 112 may not be changed after the baseline 108 has been created . a baseline may also contain zero or more baseline versions 114 that have been captured using the specification . it is to be noted that the filter part 112 of the specification is optional ( that is , not a necessary component of the technique ). a baseline may capture all data items that are available from the source . a baseline version 114 is a set of data items captured at a point in time . the baseline version 114 includes those data items that were present in the source , and that passed the filter , at the time of capture . the baseline version 114 preserves the characteristics of each data item as they existed at the time of capture . a baseline version 114 has a version number that distinguishes it from other versions of the same baseline . once captured , a baseline version 114 may be deleted , but it may not be modified . a data item version includes the values of a data item &# 39 ; s characteristics at a particular point in time . a data item version may appear in one or more consecutive baseline versions ; this indicates that the data item &# 39 ; s characteristics have not changed during the time those baseline versions were captured . capture process 116 creates a baseline version 114 by determining which data items currently pass the filter , and storing the identities and characteristics of those data items . in the prior art , each baseline version physically contains all the data items that match the filter at the time of capture . it may take a great deal of time and space to store all the data items . the present invention , however , takes advantage of the likelihood that , from one baseline version to the next , only a small percentage of the data items will change ( or be created , or be deleted ). the present invention captures and stores only those data items that have changed since the last baseline version . this is invisible to the user . each baseline version appears to be complete . the technique described here makes this possible . a versioning scheme . the versioning scheme allows a single data item definition to appear in more than one baseline version . for example , if a data item is first seen in baseline version 2 , is unchanged through versions 3 and 4 , then changes before version 5 is captured , the definition captured with version 2 also appears in versions 3 and 4 . the versioning scheme permits efficient retrieval of all the data items included in a particular baseline version . capture algorithms . the capture algorithms use the delta value associated with each data item to quickly determine if a data item has changed since the last baseline version . for baseline versions after the first , the capture algorithm stores only those data items that have changed , or have been added , since the last baseline version . if a data item has been deleted since the last baseline version , the capture algorithm does not include it in the current version . data items that have not changed since the previous version are not stored , and are allowed to appear in the current version . the versioning scheme has two main components , storage and operations . regarding the storage component , each captured data item definition is stored in one or more database tables . there is one table in particular ( the “ data item versions table ”) that contains a single row for each data item definition . an example of such a table is shown in fig2 . this table preferably contains at least the following columns : a column containing an identifier used to group all data items that belong to a particular baseline . one or more columns that contain the data item &# 39 ; s key characteristics values . one column that contains the delta value for this version of the data item . a numeric column , first_version , which identifies the first baseline version in which a data item version appears . a numeric column , last_version , which identifies the last baseline version in which a data item version appears . this column contains an arbitrarily high value ( e . g ., 99999 ) if the data item version appears in the most recent baseline version . one or more additional columns may be used to store the data item &# 39 ; s remaining ( non - key ) characteristics , or these characteristics may be stored in other tables that are linked to the data item versions table by some means . an example of a data item versions table 200 after the initial capture ( baseline ) is shown in fig2 . in this example , the baseline selects tables in schema scott . in this example , table 200 includes columns such as type column 202 , indicating the type of the object included in the baseline , schema column 204 , indicating the schema of the object , name column 206 , indicating the name of the object , first capture version column 208 , indicating the version number of the capture in which the item first appears , and last capture version column 210 , indicating the version number of the capture in which the item last appears . columns 202 , 204 , and 206 together contain the data item &# 39 ; s key characteristics . table 200 is a baseline , so all items present in the baseline at this point first appeared in capture version 1 . in the example shown in fig3 , table salgrade has been added to the schema scott , and capture version 2 is captured . table 300 includes the entries from table 200 , plus the entry for table salgrade , which first appeared in capture version 2 . in the example shown in fig4 , table emp has been modified , and capture version 3 is captured as shown in table 400 . the original version of table emp first appeared in capture version 1 and last appeared in capture version 2 , while the modified version of table emp first appeared in capture version 3 . in the example shown in fig5 , table dept is dropped , and version 4 is captured as shown in table 500 . table dept now has a last version of capture version 3 . regarding the operations component of the versioning scheme , how fundamental operations are carried out on the data item versions table is described below . add a new data item version to a baseline version : while capturing a new version n of baseline b , it is determined that a data item with key characteristic values ( k1 = x , k2 = y ) has been added since the last baseline version . add a row to the data item versions table with values : baseline identifier column : baseline id b key characteristic columns : k1 = x , k2 = y delta value column : delta value for this data item version first_version : n last_version : 99999 store the data item &# 39 ; s characteristics in additional data item versions table columns or in other tables , as appropriate . remove a data item version from a baseline version : while capturing a new version n of baseline version b , it is determined that a data item with key characteristic values ( k1 = q , k2 = r ) has been deleted since the last baseline version . determine the number of the previous version ( before n ) pv . find a row in the data item versions table having values : baseline identifier column : baseline id b key characteristic columns : k1 = q , k2 = r last_version : 99999 update a data item version in a baseline version : while capturing a new version n of baseline version b , it is determined that a data item with key characteristic values ( k1 = s , k2 = t ) has changed since the last baseline version . carry out the “ remove a data item version ” operation , followed by the “ add a data item version ” operation , for data item ( k1 = s , k2 = t ). retrieve data items that constitute a baseline version : to retrieve all the data items that constitute version n of baseline b , find the data item versions table rows that meet the following criteria : baseline identifier column : baseline id b first_version : & lt ;= n last_version : & gt ;= n retrieve all versions of a data item : to retrieve all the versions from baseline b of a data item with key characteristic values ( k1 = x , k2 = y ), find the data item versions table rows that meet the following criteria : baseline identifier column : baseline id b key characteristic columns : k1 = x , k2 = y an example of an initial ( first version ) capture process 600 is shown in fig6 . in order to capture version 1 ( the first version ) of baseline b , the process begins with step 602 , in which a list of the data items meeting the baseline specification is obtained . the list need not be sorted . each entry in the list includes at least the following information : a ) the key characteristic values for the data item b ) the delta value for the data item &# 39 ; s current set of characteristics in step 604 , for each entry in the list , carry out the “ add a data item to a baseline version ” operation described above . after the initial ( baseline ) capture , the state of the database configuration may be recaptured as desired — periodically , based on the occurrence or non - occurrence of some event , or at will . there are two different techniques that may used to perform the recapture process . depending on the types of objects included in the baseline , either or both may be used during recapture : the “ lockstep technique ” is used when an ordered list of data items with their delta values can efficiently be obtained from the baseline source . the “ hash table technique ” is used when an ordered list of data items with their delta values cannot efficiently be obtained from the baseline source , but an unordered list can be . an example of a process 700 for performing the lockstep recapture technique is shown in fig7 . process 700 captures a version n ( where n & gt ; 1 ) of baseline b . process 700 begins with step 702 , in which a list ( the “ source list ”) of the data items in the baseline source that meet the baseline specification is obtained . each entry in the list includes at least the following information : the key characteristic values for the data item the delta value for the data item &# 39 ; s current set of characteristics in step 704 , a list ( the “ baseline list ”) of the data items in the baseline version preceding version n , is obtained using the technique described in “ retrieve data items that constitute a baseline version ” above . each entry in the list includes the following information : the key characteristic values for the data item as stored in the first version the stored delta value for the data item &# 39 ; s set of characteristics at the time the first version was captured in step 706 , the two lists are compared as follows : in step 708 , it is determined whether the data item is present in the source list but not the baseline list . if so , the process continues with step 710 , in which the “ add a new data item version to a baseline version ” operation is performed . the process then continues with step 712 , in which the process advances the source list to the next data item , then loops back to repeat step 706 for the next data item . if the condition in step 708 is not met , then the process continues with step 714 , in which it is determined whether the data item is present in the baseline list but not the source list . if so , the process continues with step 716 , in which the “ remove a data item from a baseline version ” operation is performed . the process then continues with step 712 , in which the process advances the baseline list to the next data item , then loops back to repeat step 706 for the next data item . if the condition in step 714 is not met , then the data item is present in both the baseline list and the source list . the process continues with step 720 , in which it is determined whether the delta values from the baseline data item and the source data items are not equal . if it is the case that the delta values are not equal , then the process continues with step 722 , in which the “ update a data item version in a baseline version ” operation is performed . the process then continues with step 712 , in which the process advances both the source and baseline lists to their next data items , then loops back to repeat step 706 for the next data item . if the condition in step 720 is not met , the process then continues with step 712 , in which the process advances both the source and baseline lists to their next data items , then loops back to repeat step 706 for the next data item . an example of a process 800 for performing the hash table recapture technique is shown in fig8 . process 800 captures version n ( where n & gt ; 1 ) of baseline b . process 800 begins with step 802 , in which a list ( the “ source list ”) of the data items in the baseline source that meet the baseline specification is obtained . each entry in the list includes at least the following information : the key characteristic values for the data item the delta value for the data item &# 39 ; s current set of characteristics in step 804 , a list ( the “ baseline list ”) of the data items in the baseline version preceding version n , is obtained using the technique described in “ retrieve data items that constitute a baseline version ” above . each entry in the list includes the following information : the stored delta value for the data item &# 39 ; s current set of characteristics in step 806 , each delta value included the baseline list is stored , preferably in an in - memory data structure ( such as a hash table ) that permits efficient access to an object by specifying a key value . it is only necessary to insert the delta value in the data structure , using the delta value as the key value . in step 807 , it is determined if there are more entries in the source list . if so , the process continues with step 808 , in which the process attempts to find the entry &# 39 ; s delta value in the data structure created in 806 . in step 810 , it is determined , based on the attempt to find the entry &# 39 ; s delta value in the data structure in step 808 , whether the delta value is present in the data structure . if so , this means that the current version of the data item is already present in the previous baseline version and the process continues with step 812 , in which the delta value is removed from the data structure , so that the data item version will not be removed from the baseline in a later step . the process then returns to step 807 to determine if there are more entries in the source list . if , in step 810 , it is determined that the delta value is not present in the data structure , then the process continues with step 814 , in which it is determined whether the data item corresponding to that delta value entry is present in the previous baseline version . if the data item is present in the previous baseline version , then the process continues with step 816 , in which it is determined whether the data item has been modified in the baseline source , in which case , the “ update a data item version in a baseline version ” operation is performed . the process then returns to step 807 to determine if there are more entries in the source list . if , in step 814 , it is determined that the data item is not present in the previous baseline version , the process continues with step 818 , in which the “ add a new data item version to a baseline version ” operation is performed . the process then returns to step 807 to determine if there are more entries in the source list . when , in step 807 , it is determined that no entries remain in the source list , each remaining entry in the data structure represents a data item that was present in the previous baseline version , but is not present in the baseline source . thus , upon completion of steps 812 , 816 , or 818 for each entry in the baseline source list , the process continues with step 820 , in which a variant of the “ remove a data item from a baseline version ” operation is performed . in this variant of the operation , the data item to be removed is identified by its delta value rather than by its key characteristics . it is to be noted that , in practice , the “ update a data item version in a baseline version ” operation will work for both steps 816 and 818 , since “ update ” is simply a “ remove ” followed by an “ add ,” and “ remove ” does not report an error if there is nothing to remove . an exemplary block diagram of a database system 900 , in which the present invention may be implemented , is shown in fig9 . system 900 is typically a programmed general - purpose computer system , such as a personal computer , workstation , server system , and minicomputer or mainframe computer . system 900 includes one or more processors ( cpus ) 902 a - 902 n , input / output circuitry 904 , network adapter 906 , and memory 908 . cpus 902 a - 902 n execute program instructions in order to carry out the functions of the present invention . typically , cpus 902 a - 902 n are one or more microprocessors , such as an intel pentium ® processor . fig9 illustrates an embodiment in which system 900 is implemented as a single multi - processor computer system , in which multiple processors 902 a - 902 n share system resources , such as memory 908 , input / output circuitry 904 , and network adapter 906 . however , the present invention also contemplates embodiments in which system 900 is implemented as a plurality of networked computer systems , which may be single - processor computer systems , multi - processor computer systems , or a mix thereof . input / output circuitry 904 provides the capability to input data to , or output data from , database system 900 . for example , input / output circuitry may include input devices , such as keyboards , mice , touchpads , trackballs , scanners , etc ., output devices , such as video adapters , monitors , printers , etc ., and input / output devices , such as , modems , etc . network adapter 906 interfaces database system 900 with internet / intranet 910 . internet / intranet 910 may include one or more standard local area network ( lan ) or wide area network ( wan ), such as ethernet , token ring , the internet , or a private or proprietary lan / wan . memory 908 stores program instructions that are executed by , and data that are used and processed by , cpu 902 to perform the functions of system 900 . memory 908 may include electronic memory devices , such as random - access memory ( ram ), read - only memory ( rom ), programmable read - only memory ( prom ), electrically erasable programmable read - only memory ( eeprom ), flash memory , etc ., and electro - mechanical memory , such as magnetic disk drives , tape drives , optical disk drives , etc ., which may use an integrated drive electronics ( ide ) interface , or a variation or enhancement thereof , such as enhanced ide ( eide ) or ultra direct memory access ( udma ), or a small computer system interface ( scsi ) based interface , or a variation or enhancement thereof , such as fast - scsi , wide - scsi , fast and wide - scsi , etc , or a fiber channel - arbitrated loop ( fc - al ) interface . the contents of memory 908 varies depending upon the function that system 900 is programmed to perform . in the example shown in fig9 , memory 908 includes database 912 , database routines 918 , data item capture routines 920 , and operating system 928 . database 912 includes a collection of information and other objects organized in such a way that computer software can select and retrieve desired pieces of data . database routines 918 are software routines that provide the capability to store , organize , modify , and extract information from database 912 . database 912 includes a plurality of data items 914 a - n , which may be organized in one or more schemas 916 a - m . data item capture routines 920 are software routines that provide the capability to capture and recapture data item versions . operating system 922 provides overall system functionality . as shown in fig9 , the present invention contemplates implementation on a system or systems that provide multi - processor , multi - tasking , multi - process , and / or multi - thread computing , as well as implementation on systems that provide only single processor , single thread computing . multi - processor computing involves performing computing using more than one processor . multi - tasking computing involves performing computing using more than one operating system task . a task is an operating system concept that refers to the combination of a program being executed and bookkeeping information used by the operating system . whenever a program is executed , the operating system creates a new task for it . the task is like an envelope for the program in that it identifies the program with a task number and attaches other bookkeeping information to it . many operating systems , including uni ®, os / 2 ®, and windows ®, are capable of running many tasks at the same time and are called multitasking operating systems . multi - tasking is the ability of an operating system to execute more than one executable at the same time . each executable is running in its own address space , meaning that the executables have no way to share any of their memory . this has advantages , because it is impossible for any program to damage the execution of any of the other programs running on the system . however , the programs have no way to exchange any information except through the operating system ( or by reading files stored on the file system ). multi - process computing is similar to multi - tasking computing , as the terms task and process are often used interchangeably , although some operating systems make a distinction between the two . it is important to note that while the present invention has been described in the context of a fully functioning data processing system , those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the processes of the present invention are capable of being distributed in the form of a computer readable medium of instructions and a variety of forms and that the present invention applies equally regardless of the particular type of signal bearing media actually used to carry out the distribution . examples of computer readable media include recordable - type media such as floppy disc , a hard disk drive , ram , and cd - rom &# 39 ; s , as well as transmission - type media , such as digital and analog communications links . although specific embodiments of the present invention have been described , it will be understood by those of skill in the art that there are other embodiments that are equivalent to the described embodiments . accordingly , it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited by the specific illustrated embodiments , but only by the scope of the appended claims .	6
according to various embodiments of the present invention , a simplified version of kubelka - monk in conjunction with a non - continuous version of bier &# 39 ; s law for converting device independent data into device dependent data , such as rgb data , are used to provide a reasonable estimate for measured device independent data , such as cielab or ciexyz values , of mixed colorants on a substrate . according to embodiments of this invention , a reasonable baseline of original information is assumed , such as the information one normally finds in an icc profile , combined with measurements that indicate shifts from the baseline , such as a change in paper color . for those situations where there is no baseline information indicating the overprinting of different colors , such as for example a list of l * a * b * values for spot colors , the described techniques at least can provide a reasonably valid estimate for the mixing of solid colors , far better than current results in drawing applications . additionally , for packaging applications , the described techniques can give reasonable estimates for overprint colors based on accurate data for the individual colorants in conjunction with a baseline example for a particular printing press . such reasonable estimates are useful because packaging customers often have difficulty performing color management for their work due to the fact that each job often has a different set of colorants . the techniques described herein assist in predicting color profiles on a per job basis with changing inks based on a baseline characterization . this can be very useful to packaging customers or anyone that needs very accurate color in print jobs . turning now to fig3 , various embodiments of the present invention , described below , involve inventive data processing techniques that may be executed by a system 300 . the system 300 includes a computer system 301 , that itself may include one or more computers communicatively connected . the data required to execute the below - described data processing techniques may be provided to the computer system 301 from an input source 302 communicatively connected to the computer system 301 . although one skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention is not limited to any particular input source 302 , such input source may include one or more user - interfaces , such as keyboards , mice , etc ., other computers , or computer accessible memories that may have data stored therein or thereon . to facilitate executing the data processing techniques described below , the computer system 301 may have a data storage system 304 communicatively connected to it . the data storage system 304 may include one or more computer accessible memories . the output ( s ) generated by the computer system 301 as a result of executing the data processing techniques described below may be transmitted to an output source 303 communicatively connected to the computer system 301 . although one skilled in the art will appreciate that the invention is not limited to any particular output source 303 , such output source 303 may include one or more display devices , other computers , or computer accessible memories that may have data stored therein or thereon . accordingly , the output source 303 may be included , completely or partially , within the data - storage system 304 . in this regard , the input source 302 may also be included , completely or partially , within the data - storage system 304 . the data - storage system 304 may be a distributed data - storage system including multiple computer - accessible memories communicatively connected via a plurality of computers and / or devices . on the other hand , the data storage system 304 need not be a distributed data - storage system and , consequently , may include one or more computer - accessible memories located within a single computer or device . the phrase “ computer - accessible memory ” is intended to include any computer - accessible data storage device , whether volatile or nonvolatile , electronic , magnetic , optical , or otherwise , including but not limited to , floppy disks , hard disks , compact discs , dvds , flash memories , roms , and rams . the term “ computer ” is intended to include any data processing device , such as a desktop computer , a laptop computer , a mainframe computer , a personal digital assistant , a blackberry , and / or any other device for processing data , and / or managing data , and / or handling data , whether implemented with electrical and / or magnetic and / or optical and / or biological components , and / or otherwise . the phrase “ communicatively connected ” is intended to include any type of connection , whether wired , wireless , or both , between devices , and / or computers , and / or programs in which data may be communicated . further , the phrase “ communicatively connected ” is intended to include a connection between devices and / or programs within a single computer , a connection between devices and / or programs located in different computers , and a connection between devices not located in computers at all . in this regard , although the data storage system 304 is shown separately from the computer system 301 , one skilled in the art will appreciate that the data storage system 304 may be stored completely or partially within the computer system 301 . the data processing techniques , according to various embodiments of the present invention , begin with a simplified version of kubelka - munk , in which it is assumed that the scattering approaches 0 . this implies that for a first order approximation , the colorants only absorb light , meaning that they are perfectly transparent ( i . e . not opaque ). this assumption implies that the ratio of absorption to scattering k ( λ )/ s ( λ ) is nearly infinite , resulting in the following expression ( also known as bier &# 39 ; s law ): r q ( λ , z )= r g ( λ ) e − k ( λ ) z eq . 1 if multiple colorants of thickness z i are combined , this may be extended to : r q ( λ , z 0 , z 1 , z 2 , . . . )= r g ( λ ) e − σk i ( λ ) z i eq . 2 where , for example , i denotes 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 identifying cyan , magenta , yellow , and black . since the icc based standards used in the graphic arts are generally based on cie systems which are inherently based on red , green , blue ( or ρ , β , γ in cie terminology ), the single continuous function of λ , r q ( λ ), which is based on an infinite set of possible values of λ , is replaced with a function of dimension 3 that predicts reflection for the red , green , blue areas of the visible spectrum : r j ( z 0 , z 1 , z 2 , . . . )= r gi e − σk ij z i eq . 3 where j = 0 , 1 , 2 denotes red , green , and blue portions of the spectrum . this reflectance 3 - d vector may be denoted as r ( z 0 , z 1 , z 2 , . . . ). although this embodiment of the present invention converts device independent coordinates into a discrete 3 - dimensional rgb approximation of the visible spectrum , one skilled in the art will appreciate that other discrete approximations of the visible spectrum may be used . now , in actual printing there are complex interactions that occur : as one colorant prints over another colorant , the adhesion may be higher or lower than that of printing on the paper substrate . this phenomenon may be difficult to separate from effects such as scattering unless experimental data has been obtained to precisely determine and separate out these effects . assuming that such data may not be available , an embodiment of this invention proposes to combine the effects of all interactions into a simple correction factor . this correction factor may be for example in the form of an effective colorant thickness z i ′ which may be slightly different from the original value z i . hence value z i in the expression above is replaced with where , as before , i denotes colorant and j denotes red , green , or blue part of the spectrum . the correction factor may account for colorant bonding differences of colorants deposited upon other colorants relative to colorants deposited directly on a paper base , as indicated above . moreover , the same or similar correction factor may also be used to account for colorant impurities . the term “ paper base ” is generally used herein to refer to any substrate or surface on which colorants may be deposited . note that the exponential expression in equation 3 above may be regarded as the transmittance property of each colorant as a function of its thickness z i : t ij ( z i )= e − k ij z i eq . 5 t ij ( z i , δ i )= e − k ij ( z i + δ i ) t ij ( z i , δ i )= t ij ( z i ) t ij ( δ i ) eq . 6 if it is assumed that baseline data contains cielab data for paper base , colorants , and overprints , the expression above may be rewritten in terms of a product of the reflectance of the baseline paper substrate and the negative exponentials of the colorant absorptions , modified by corrections caused by δz above : for simplicity , all of the tij ( δi ) corrections for a particular combination of colorants may be combined into a single correction factor ( 1 + δj ). this correction is valid only for that particular combination of individual colorants : assuming that the value of transmission for a particular colorant will always be determined via measurement of paper and individual colorant printing on that paper , the above may further be simplified as functions purely of the change in paper and the empirically determined transmissions of each of the colorants , corrected by the overall delta for that particular combination of colorants : the last mathematical conversion may be used to derive rgb from cielab values . this conversion may be performed using a simple matrix transformation — no tone curves are required since all the above calculations have been performed in linear rgb space , which may be converted directly from xyz via matrix transformation : the matrix used to convert between xyz and rgb may be any reasonable space that contains the gamut of colorants : for cmyk inks for example , adobergb with white point set to d50 illumination may be used . note that the rgb transmittance for any individual colorant may be derived from its measured cielab value by the expression : where r gj is the rgb vector converted from xyz of the paper base converted directly to rgb according to the above and r jmeas is the rgb value converted from the measured xyz of the colorant + paper together . likewise , the delta correction which combines all the interactions between colorants for a particular overprinted group of colorants , may be derived as follows : for measured colors that are a combination of paper base and more than one colorant , it is noted that if a particular colorant is missing ( i . e . is 0 %), that colorant will have no absorption k which means that t ij = 1 for that colorant “ i ”— i . e . it has no impact on the resulting final reflection . note that the determined values of t ij refer to individual colorants and r gj refers to the value of paper converted directly from the value of xyz for the paper base . if it is now assumed that new values of paper and / or colorant are measured and converted to r ′ gi for the paper and t ′ ij for the individual colorant according to eq . 14 above , a new estimated value may be calculated for r ′ jmeas . thus the procedure for predicting colors in this manner may be summarized as follows : 1 ) convert all cielab values to ciexyz and from ciexyz to rgb using equation 11 above 2 ) note that the rgb vector for the paper base r g is now determined directly from step 1 3 ) determine the transmittance vectors t i from equation 13 for the remaining i colorants by normalizing out the values of the paper base vector r g as indicated by equation 13 4 ) determine the overprint delta corrections δ j for each combination of overprints , ( i . e . red , green , blue , 3 / color , etc . according to equation 14 above ). having determined values of δ j for each overprint color , it is noted that if all values of xyz for paper and colorants remain unchanged , there will be no change to the calculated values r jmeas . if a shift is detected for either paper or colorants or both , new values of r ′ gi for the paper and t ′ ij may be empirically determined and new values of r ′ jmeas may be calculated for each solid and overprint color . these estimated values of r ′ jmeas may be converted back to xyz according to eq . 10 above . if there is no measured data available for a paper base or for any colorant , it is assumed that no change has occurred . in other words , the value of r ′ gi for the paper and t ′ ij for the colorants remains unchanged for any component for which there is no data . thus , if the only data offered for recalculating the solids and overprints is that of paper , the new values of first paper reflectance are calculated and new values of colorants may be calculated . this is particularly important for colors , such as a yellow , that tend to shift with a similar direction and magnitude as the shifts in paper due to its low degree of absorption for all colors other than blue . for situations where no original overprint data exists , such as an illustration application painting with pantone ™ colors , equation 16 may be used with the value of δ j be set to 0 , implying a perfect overprint and transparent mixing of the two colors . the overprinting of similar colors using transparency enabled will result in a darker , more saturated composite color relative to the original colors . thus , the expected darker appearance of the cyan intersection in the original example would indeed occur . the approach described above is a good first order approximation which assumes that the change in effective thickness of each colorant is a fixed value . if a more realistic adjustment is assumed , namely that the proportional change in thickness for each colorant is constant rather than the absolute magnitude of change in thickness , a slightly more complex calculation may be performed to estimate how the resulting overprint colors varies with changes in individual colorant , in the manner shown below . equation 4 is rewritten to indicate proportional change in thickness rather than absolute change in thickness : t ij ( z i , δ i )= e − k ij z i ( 1 + δ i ) t ij ( z i , δ i )= t ij ( z i ) ( 1 + δ i ) eq . 17 if it is assumed that baseline data contains cielab data for paper base , colorants , and overprints , the expression above may be rewritten in terms of a product of the reflectance of the baseline paper substrate and the negative exponentials of the colorant absorptions , modified by corrections caused by δz above : assuming that the value of transmission for a particular colorant will always be determined via measurement of paper and individual colorant printing on that paper , the above may further be simplified as functions purely of the reflection of paper and the empirically determined transmissions of each of the colorants , corrected by the overall delta for that particular combination of colorants : this calculation is now reduced to a set of 3 linear equations with 4 unknowns . if the case of 4 color black overprint is ignored , which has little impact on color due to its high density and low chroma , the values of all the other overprint colors may uniquely be calculated since at least one of the 4 colors in each overprint is not present , which equates to t = 1 , and log [ t ]= 0 , δi = 0 for that non - present colorant or colorants . the vector δi may hence be calculated from standard solutions to 3 linear equations with 3 unknowns ( similar for 2 colorant overprints — 2 equations with 2 unknowns ): ( δ 0 δ 1 δ 2 ) = m - 1 ⁡ ( α 0 α 1 α 2 ) eq . ⁢ 21 where 0 , 1 , 2 each temporarily denote cyan , magenta , yellow , or black and represent three out of the four colorants present in the overprint color . the 4 color overprint may be handled in an approximate manner using the value δ as described earlier in this document . the values of α j are given by : having determined these more complex and more accurate values of the deltas , the user may recalculate the vectors r j for new values of paper and colorants by measuring paper and colorant xyz and converting to rgb in order to determine r gi and t ij . having recalculated the r j vector , one may convert back to predicted xyz . it is to be understood that the exemplary embodiments are merely illustrative of the present invention and that many variations of the above - described embodiments can be devised by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention . it is therefore intended that all such variations be included within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents .	7
korean patent application no . 2001 - 71144 , filed nov . 15 , 2001 , and entitled : “ semiconductor memory device and bit line sensing method thereof ,” is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety . reference will now be made in detail to preferred embodiments of the present invention , an example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings . [ 0044 ] fig5 illustrates a circuit diagram of a semiconductor memory device according to the present invention . the semiconductor memory device of fig5 preferably includes a cell bit line pre - charge circuit 40 connected between cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli , a sense amplifier bit line pre - charge circuit 44 , a pmos sense amplifier 46 and an nmos sense amplifier 48 , which are connected between sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa , and charge transfer circuits or bit line isolation circuits 42 and 50 connected between the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa - blbsa and the cell bit line pairs blcelli - blbcelli and blcellj - blbcellj , respectively . memory cells mci and mcj represent representative memory cells among memory cells arranged in memory cell array blocks blk 1 and blk 2 , respectively , among n - number of memory cell array blocks blk 1 to blkn . a capacitor cb 1 represents a cell bit line load capacitor , and a capacitor csa represents a sense amplifier bit line load capacitor . the cell bit line pre - charge circuit 40 includes nmos transistors n 22 , n 23 and n 24 . the nmos transistor n 22 is connected between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and has a gate receiving a control signal blpre . the nmos transistors n 23 and n 24 are serially connected between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and have a gate receiving the control signal blpre and a common source receiving a pre - charge voltage vcca / 2 . the sense amplifier bit line pre - charge circuit 44 has pmos transistors p 5 and p 6 . the pmos transistors p 5 and p 6 are serially connected between the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa and have a gate receiving a control signal sapre and a common source receiving a first voltage vcca . the pmos sense amplifier 46 has pmos transistors p 7 and p 8 serially connected between the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa . the pmos transistors p 7 and p 8 have a common source receiving the voltage from sapre , or an external power voltage , but preferably the first voltage vcca . a gate of the pmos transistor p 7 is connected to the sense amplifier bit line blbsa , and a gate of the pmos transistor p 8 is connected to the sense amplifier bit line blsa . the nmos sense amplifier 48 has nmos transistors n 27 and n 28 serially connected between the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa . the nmos transistors n 27 and n 28 have a common source receiving a signal san . a gate of the nmos transistor n 27 is connected to the sense amplifier bit line blbsa , and a gate of the nmos transistor n 28 is connected to the sense amplifier bit line blsa . the bit line isolation circuit 42 includes nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 connected between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa , respectively . the bit line isolation circuit 50 includes nmos transistors n 29 and n 30 connected between cell bit line pair blcellj and blbcellj and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa , respectively . each of the memory cells mci and mcj includes an nmos transistor nm having a gate connected to the word lines wli and wlj and a drain connected to the cell bit line blcelli and blcellj , respectively , and a capacitor c connected between a source of the nmos transistor nm and a ground voltage . the nmos transistors n 22 , n 23 , and n 24 of the cell bit line pre - charge circuit 40 are turned on in response to the control signal blpre having a logic “ high ” level to pre - charge the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli to a voltage vcca / 2 . the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 of the bit line isolation circuit 42 are turned on in response to a control signal isoi to transfer charges to , and electrically connect , the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli to the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa . the pmos transistors p 5 and p 6 of the sense amplifier bit line pre - charge circuit 44 are turned on in response to the control signal sapre having a logic “ low ” level to pre - charge the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa to a first voltage vcca . the pmos transistors p 7 and p 8 of the pmos sense amplifier 46 are turned on in response to a signal of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa having a logic “ low ” level to amplify a signal of the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa having a logic “ high ” level to a first voltage vcca . when a sense amplifier enable signal san of 0 volts is applied , the nmos transistors n 27 and n 28 of the nmos sense amplifier 48 are turned on in response to a signal of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa to amplify a signal of the cell bit line pair blcellj and blbcelij and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa having a logic “ low ” level to a second voltage of 0 volts . the nmos transistors n 29 and n 30 of the bit line isolation circuit 50 are turned on in response to a control signal isoj to transfer charges to , and electrically connect the cell bit line pair blcellj and blbcellj to the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa . in fig5 the pmos sense amplifier 46 is preferably configured to be directly connected to a first voltage vcca . but , like the nmos sense amplifier 48 , the pmos sense amplifier 46 may be configured such that a first voltage vcca is applied to the common source of the pmos transistors p 7 and p 8 . in this case , when a sense amplifier enable signal having a first voltage level vcca is applied , the pmos transistors p 7 and p 8 are turned on in response to a signal of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa having a logic “ low ” level to amplify a signal of the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa having a logic “ high ” level to a first voltage vcca . [ 0049 ] fig6 illustrates a circuit diagram of a control signal generating circuit for generating the control signal isoi shown in fig5 according to the present invention . the circuit of fig6 preferably includes inverters 11 to 13 , an nmos transistor n 31 , and a pmos transistor p 9 . the inverters 11 and 12 buffer a control signal p 1 having a logic “ high ” level to generate a high third voltage vpp . the inverter 13 inverts a control signal p 2 having a logic “ high ” level to generate a second voltage 0v . the nmos transistor n 31 receives a first voltage vcca to generate the control signal isoi in response to an output signal of the inverter 12 having the high third voltage level vpp . the pmos transistor p 9 receives a high third voltage vpp to generate the control signal isoi in response to an output signal of the inverter 13 having a ground voltage level ( second voltage 0v ). [ 0050 ] fig7 illustrates a circuit diagram of a signal generating circuit for generating the signals p 1 and p 2 shown in fig6 according to the present invention . the signal generating circuit of fig7 preferably includes a word line enable signal generating circuit 60 , and first , second and third delay circuits 62 , 64 and 66 , respectively . the first delay circuit 62 is designed to have the same line load as the word line enable signal generating circuit 60 . the word line enable signal generating circuit 60 incorporates a predetermined time delay after reception and decoding of a row address ra in response to an inverted row address strobe signal rasb before generating a word line enable signal wl . the first delay circuit 62 generates a signal rwl in response to the inverted row address strobe signal rasb at the same time that the word line enable signal wl is generated . the second delay circuit 64 delays the signal rwl by a first predetermined time to generate the signal p 1 . the third delay circuit 66 delays the signal rwl by a second predetermined time to generate the signal p 2 . since the first delay circuit 62 preferably has a same configuration as the word line enable signal generating circuit 60 , the signals rwl , p 1 and p 2 may be generated with accurate timing . operation of the semiconductor memory device of fig5 is described below with reference to fig8 which illustrates timing diagrams ( a ) and ( b ), illustrating an operation of the semiconductor memory device of fig5 . in particular , ( a ) is a timing diagram to describe an operation of a cell bit line pair portion , and ( b ) is a timing diagram to describe an operation of a sense amplifier bit line pair . in fig8 data is read from the memory cell array block blk 1 . during a time period t 1 , when the control signal isoi is maintained at the second voltage of 0 volts , the control signal blpre having a logic “ high ” level , and the control signal sapre having a logic “ low ” level are applied , the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 are turned off . the nmos transistors n 22 , n 23 and n 24 are turned on to pre - charge the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli to a voltage vcca / 2 . the pmos transistors p 5 and p 6 are turned on to pre - charge the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa to a first voltage vcca . during a time period t 2 , when a high voltage vpp is applied to the word line wli , the nmos transistor nm of the memory cell mci is turned on to perform a charge sharing operation between the capacitor c and the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli . thus , a voltage difference occurs between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli . during a time period t 3 , when the control signal isoi of a first voltage vcca is applied , the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 are turned on , so that a charge transfer occurs between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa , and a voltage of the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli is steadily raised to cause a voltage difference δvblcelli , and a voltage of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa is steadily lowered to cause δvblsa . during a time period t 4 , when a voltage difference between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa is lower than a threshold voltage of the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 , the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 are turned off . as a result , a connection between the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa is cut off , and charge transfer therebetween ceases . consequently , the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa are maintained at a certain level . during a time period t 5 , when the sense amplifier enable signal san of 0 volts is applied , the nmos sense amplifier 46 and the pmos sense amplifier 48 operate to amplify a voltage of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa to a voltage of 0 volts and a voltage vcca , respectively . at this time , when the control signal isoi is transited to a high third voltage level vpp , the nmos transistors n 25 and n 26 are turned on so that an amplified level of the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa is transferred to the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli . that is , during this time period , the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli as well as the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa is amplified . the semiconductor memory device of the present invention is preferably configured to apply a voltage vcca , which corresponds to an intermediate voltage level of the control signal isoi , as a voltage for pre - charging the cell bit line pair blcelli and blbcelli and the sense amplifier bit line pair blsa and blbsa . however , the semiconductor memory device of the present invention may be configured to apply an external power voltage instead of the voltage vcca . as described above , the semiconductor memory device according to the present invention shares the pmos sense amplifier and the nmos sense amplifier between the memory cell array blocks to perform a charge transfer pre - sensing operation , and thus a layout area size can be significantly reduced . in addition , using the semiconductor memory device and the bit line sensing method according to the present invention , it is easier to control a level of the control signal applied to the bit line isolation circuit than by using conventional implementations . a preferred embodiment of the present invention has been disclosed herein and , although specific terms are employed , they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purpose of limitation . accordingly , it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that various changes in form and details may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the following claims .	6
generally , as shown in fig1 the invention herein is a computerized telecommunications lottery wagering system . the system automatically handles telephone calls from subscribers with an automatic call director ( acd ). a voice responsive unit ( vru ) welcomes the subscriber to the lottery wagering system and places a wager for the subscriber based on information elicited from them over the telephone including and account number , personal id number , the particular state lottery of interest , the particular lottery format of interest , such as 6 - digit lotto , &# 34 ; keno &# 34 ;, 3 - digit lotto , the type of wager , &# 34 ; quick - pick &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; personal numbers &# 34 ;, and a betting amount . the host computer ( hereinafter &# 34 ; host &# 34 ;) stores the information in a mainframe computer and confirms the wager back to the subscriber via the vru . the link between the telephone handset and the acd may be through the telephone company equipment by landline , satellite communications or fiber optic connections . where the subscriber has computer facilities , voice and touch - tone is not required and the subscriber may access the system directly from the computer . the host is more completely described in an ibm brochure entitled , ibm system / 88 digest , first edition ( december 1988 ), publication no . g520 6518 - 00 , which is hereby incorporated by reference . the acd is more fully described in an at & amp ; t brochure entitled , an introduction to definity 75 / 85 communications system , generic 2 , which is hereby incorporated by reference . the vru is more fully described in a perception technology brochure entitled , bt - 111 the perception advantage , which is hereby incorporated by reference . if required , a multi - lingual vru may be employed . in one embodiment , the system provides subscribers with two 800 numbers , one for the purpose of enrolling as a subscriber and the other for the purpose of placing wagers . when the subscriber dials either of the 800 numbers they will be connected to their local telephone company , and then ultimately into the network of the watts carrier that are selected to provide the service . all calls are connected to the acd from the watts network and routed to the appropriate vru . the acd routes enrollment calls to enrollment vrus and wagering calls to wagering vrus . to determine the subscriber &# 39 ; s originating location the system utilizes a feature of the network called automatic number identification ( ani ). the ani feature allows the system to determine , at a minimum , the area code and 3 - digit exchange of the caller and in many instances the entire 10 - digit telephone number . in one embodiment , the system uses the area code to limit the caller to placing wagers only with the state lottery within the state from which they are calling . in another embodiment the system allows the subscriber to place lottery wagers on an interstate or interstate basis , so that a lottery wager can be placed from anywhere to any state , or even international , lottery through the use of a touch - tone telephone . both the intrastate and interstate wagering are discussed in more detail below . fig2 shows a flow chart of the subscriber enrollment process of the vru , and fig2 a and 2b respectively show the associated subscriber enrollment vru scripts . in this case , for example , the subscriber would have dialed 1 - 800 - enroll and been connected to an enrollment vru by the acd . the system is adaptable to any actual enrollment / customer service 800 number assigned by the telephone company . utilizing the ani feature , the vru will store the telephone number of the subscriber and play the subscriber enrollment script as depicted in fig2 a . first the vru plays a welcome message to the subscriber , welcoming them to the automated subscriber enrollment process , and then asks them to respond to a number of questions by pressing the appropriate number on their touch tone telephone . as shown in fig2 a , the first question to be asked is &# 34 ; please select the credit card you wish to use &# 34 ;. for example , in the process of selecting the caller will be asked to press &# 34 ; 1 for visa &# 34 ;, &# 34 ; 2 for mastercard &# 34 ;, &# 34 ; 3 for discover &# 34 ;, &# 34 ; 4 for american express &# 34 ;, and &# 34 ; 5 for diners card &# 34 ;. in the example , the caller responded with a ` 1 ` and the vru played back a message , &# 34 ; you have selected visa , enter your card number &# 34 ;. after the subscriber enters their card number , the vru plays back the numbers entered and requests confirmation of the account number or re - entry . for example , the vru plays back , &# 34 ; you have entered 123 , 456 , 789 , 012 , 345 , 6 , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. if the number played back is incorrect the caller would press 2 and re - enter their account number . if the number was correct the caller would press 1 and the vru would store the number and immediately send a transaction to the host to initiate the host credit card authorization process as indicated by the off page connector 11 . 0 ( shown as an inverted pyramid ), see fig1 described herein . the vru sends a transaction code , credit card type code , and credit card account number to the host . this authorization process is described later in this document . concurrently with that authorization by the host , the vru continues the automated enrollment process by playing subscriber enrollment script 2 ( fig2 b ). the vru plays a message requesting the subscriber to enter the four - digit expiration month and year of their credit card . in our example , the caller entered &# 34 ; 11 89 &# 34 ;, and the vru responded with the message &# 34 ; you have entered 11 89 , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. if the caller confirms the date by pressing 1 then the vru will respond with the message &# 34 ; enter your two - digit weekly wager amount &# 34 ;, else the vru will again request the expiration month and year . when the caller then - enters &# 34 ; 10 &# 34 ; signifying that on a weekly basis they wager ten dollars ($ 10 . 00 ) on lottery games , the vru confirms the weekly wager amount by responding with a message &# 34 ; you have entered 10 dollars , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. in our example , since the caller pressed ` 1 ` to confirm , the vru then plays the message , &# 34 ; the system will now charge your credit card with 50 dollars , providing you with an open balance to wager . we will also obtain your credit information from the credit card company you have selected . press 1 to authorize the withdrawal and obtaining of credit information &# 34 ;. to minimize the number of credit card transactions , in a preferred embodiment , the system software multiplies the wager amount entered by five and rounds upwards to the nearest ten dollars . if the subscriber entered five dollars , the system would multiply five by five giving twenty - five and round upwards to thirty dollars . this amount is withdrawn from the credit card creating an open balance to wager in the subscribers account . the caller confirms the withdrawal amount by pressing &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ; and the vru responds with a message , &# 34 ; you will now be transferred to a customer service agent .&# 34 ; as indicated earlier , the vru can send a transaction to the host which initiated the host credit card authorization process ( fig1 ). the host may for instance , be linked on - line to the credit card company &# 39 ; s database to validate the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card number . in addition , the system obtains the caller &# 39 ; s name , address , city , state , zip code , home and business telephone numbers , and their social security number . the host then stores the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card information in the subscriber master file , which is made available to the customer service agent when the caller is transferred to complete the enrollment . subsequently , the customer service agent repeats all information entered by the subscriber and obtained from the credit card company . once the caller verbally confirms all the information they will be provided with a subscriber id , a personal id number ( pin ), and the 800 number to be used for wagering . the system will also request the preparation of an information packet which will be mailed to the subscriber . the entire conversation is recorded via a tape recorder that is connected to the acd customer service agent &# 39 ; s extension . the system will record all conversations using this equipment and since the system also records the date and time of each call , the recorded information is readily available . this concludes the automated subscriber enrollment process . the subscriber is now able to place lottery wagers utilizing the system . the customer service agent can transfer the subscriber to a wagering vru and the subscriber can start placing wagers . fig3 shows a flow chart of the subscriber identification and game selection process of the vru , and fig3 a , 3b , and 3c respectively show the associated wagering vru scripts played to the subscriber . in one embodiment , for example , the subscriber would dial 1 - 800 - wager to be connected to a wagering vru by the acd . the system is adaptable to any number assigned by the telephone company . utilizing the ani feature , the wagering vru will store the telephone number of the caller and play the subscriber identification script as depicted in fig3 a . note that in the description of this embodiment the interstate wagering feature of the system is highlighted , but where appropriate , the differences related to intrastate wagering are mentioned . but generally , on an intrastate basis the subscriber would be blocked from wagering by the vru if their call was not initiated from within a state that had a lottery . the subscriber would only be allowed to place wagers with that lottery . as shown in fig3 in the subscriber identification and game selection process , the vru plays a welcome message to the subscriber and requests their account number as depicted in fig3 a . in our example , the subscriber entered ` 123456789098 `, and the vru responded with , &# 34 ; you entered 123 , 456 , 789 , 098 , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. the subscriber responded with a 1 and the vru then played the message , &# 34 ; enter your personal id &# 34 ;. the subscriber entered ` 12345 ` and the vru responded with &# 34 ; you entered 123 , 45 , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. the subscriber responded by pressing ` 1 ` to confirm that the number was correct . the vru stores the subscriber id and pin and immediately sends a transaction to the host to validate the subscriber . the vru sends a transaction code , subscriber id , and pin to the host which would immediately initiate the host validate subscriber process , see fig4 described herein . the vru then requests the entry of the amount to be wagered during this call . the host compares this amount to the subscriber &# 39 ; s open balance to wager to insure that sufficient funds are available for wagering . the system only reduces the open balance to wager as wagers are placed and not by the entry of this wager amount . the vru plays the message , &# 34 ; enter 2 - digit wager amount &# 34 ;. in our example , the subscriber entered ` 10 `, and the vru then responds with , &# 34 ; you entered 10 dollars , press 1 to confirm , 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. as shown the subscriber responded by pressing ` 1 `. in response to the subscriber input , the vru plays either the script in fig3 b or 3c . the determining factor is whether interstate wagering is allowed . for interstate wagering , the vru plays the script in fig3 b , lottery selection , to the subscriber . this script gives the subscriber the option to select one of five options . the first four options will be the lotteries in close proximity to their state . the fifth option &# 34 ; other states &# 34 ;, will cause the vru to play another script which will allow the subscriber to select from another group of lotteries . this will continue until the subscriber is given the option to select from any state with a lottery that utilizes the service . once the subscriber makes their lottery selection the vru plays the script in fig3 c , game selection . in the game selection script shown fig3 c , the vru presents the subscriber with the various lottery games available within the selected lottery . on an intrastate basis it presents the games available within the state from which the call initiated . for instance , the vru plays a message and welcomes the subscriber to the lottery then plays a message , &# 34 ; press 3 for 3 - digit numbers , press 4 for 4 - digit numbers , press 6 for lotto , press 7 for keno &# 34 ;. in our example , the subscriber pressed ` 6 ` for lotto . now the subscriber can place a wager . they will now be transferred to the 6 - digit lotto process as described in fig5 a and 5b . as described above , when the subscriber entered their id and pin , the vru requested that the host validate the subscriber id ( see fig4 ). at this point the host should have completed that process and has sent a signal to the vru to allow the wager to proceed or to transfer the subscriber to customer service in the event of a problem . ( the vru also can be programmed to determine , that a subscriber is having difficulty in using the system .) if the subscriber cannot place a wager for any reason at this point , the vru will transfer the caller to a customer service agent for assistance in completing the wager . if the host subscriber validation process was successful , the host returns an appropriate message to the vru allowing the wagering to proceed . this concludes the discussion of fig3 a , 3b , and 3c , known as subscriber identification and game selection process . fig4 shows a flow chart of the host validate subscriber process , which validates the subscriber identification to the system and determines whether they have sufficient funds to place a wager . for instance , in response to voice commands from the vru , the subscriber enters their subscriber id and their pin . the host receives this information from the vru and calls the validation process which searches a subscriber master file for a match . if a match does not exist , then the host sends an invalid subscriber message signal to the vru , which plays an invalid subscriber message back to the subscriber . if a match is found , then the host compares the subscriber &# 39 ; s open balance to wager against the amount which they indicated they would be wagering . if there are sufficient funds , then the host sends a sufficient funds signal to the vru and the subscriber would then be allowed to proceed . the system then returns to off page connector 3 . 2 ( shown as an inverted pyramid and also known as an off page connector ), see fig3 . in our example , since funds are available the host sends a message signal back to the vru to proceed with the wager . if funds are not available , the host calls the host additional funds process , indicated by the off page connector 12 . 0 , see fig1 described herein . in response to a withdrawal approval from the host additional funds process , the host sends a sufficient funds signal to the vru and the subscriber would then be allowed to proceed . in response to a withdrawal nonapproval , the host sends a bad card signal to the vru which plays a bad card message back to the subscriber . the system then returns to off page connectors 3 . 2 , see fig3 described above . fig5 shows a flow chart of the 6 - digit lotto process of the vru , and fig5 a and 5b show the scripts for the messages played by the vru back to the subscriber . all of the game types described herein in fig5 to 8 from an overall systems perspective operate the same way . the essential difference between the games is the combination of numbers played , including both the amount and the range of numbers allowed . for example , 6 - digit lotto , requires 6 two - digit numbers . different state lotteries have variations on the range of number which can be selected . for example , in new jersey the lotto game range is presently from 1 to 48 , and subscribers can select any 6 numbers that are not repeated within that range . in new york &# 39 ; s lotto game the range is presently from 1 to 54 . in the flow chart shown in fig5 after the subscriber picks 6 - digit lotto ( see fig3 ), the vru requests a wagering type from the subscriber . in the script shown in fig5 a , the vru plays a message &# 34 ; you have chosen pick 6 lotto &# 34 ; to inform the subscriber of their choice , and also requests in the message that they either &# 34 ; press 1 for quick pick &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; 2 to enter your numbers &# 34 ;. if the subscriber chooses quick pick by responding with a &# 34 ; 1 &# 34 ;, then the vru plays a message &# 34 ; you have selected quick pick press 2 digit dollar amount &# 34 ; ( again see fig5 a ). in the case of a quick pick wager , the vru requests the entry of a quickpick wager amount then confirms it . for example , if the subscriber responds with &# 34 ; 10 &# 34 ;, then the vru plays a message &# 34 ; you have entered 10 dollars , press ` 1 ` to confirm , press ` 2 ` to re - enter &# 34 ; to confirm or re - enter the subscriber &# 39 ; s wagering amount . if the subscriber presses ` 2 ` to reenter , enter the vru again requests a quick pick amount . presently , in the state of new jersey a $ 10 . 00 wager results in 10 plays since every game cost $ 1 . 00 , while in new york state the $ 10 . 00 results in 20 plays since every game costs 50 cents , although the minimum in new york is a $ 1 . 00 wager which gives the subscriber two games . after the subscriber confirms the $ 10 . 00 wager amount , the vru sends to the host the subscriber id , the lotto selected , and 6 - digit lotto wager for $ 10 . 00 . the host then calls the host quick pick process as indicated by off page connector 9 . 0 , see fig9 described herein . in summary , in the host quick pick process the host firsts determines the lottery &# 39 ; s profile from a master state lottery file , and if the state lottery was in new jersey , for example , where the range of numbers is from 1 to 48 , then it would utilize a random number generating routine to generate 6 unique numbers between 1 and 48 for each game . again for new jersey , the quick pick process would generate 6 unique numbers for all 10 games . in comparison , if the call had been placed from new york , the host would , have generated 20 games . after the host quick pick process returns with the quick pick numbers , the vru plays a message &# 34 ; please hold for confirmation &# 34 ; and plays each of the wagers generated back to the subscriber , see fig5 a . note that the system only does so if the subscriber chooses to listen and record the numbers , if they hang up no message is played . the vru also plays a confirmation or ticket number assigned by the host to that wager . as far as the overall system is concerned , once the subscriber confirms the wager amount , if the subscriber at that time choose to hang up the phone , it would still generate all of the wagers , place them in the lottery , and store all the wagers within for billing , inquiry and auditing purposes . on a monthly basis the system will produce a statement which will tell the subscriber every wager that was placed , every draw down that was made from their credit card , all service charges , an opening balance from the last statement , and a closing balance as a result of this statement . at this point the system returns to the state lottery script as indicated by the off page connector 3 . 1 and go to fig3 . once again the system gives the subscriber the options : to place another wager , to select another game within this lottery , to select another lottery to place wagers , or finally to terminate the call . in the alternative , the other option in the 6 - digit lotto process was to allow the subscriber to enter their own numbers . if the subscriber chose to enter their own numbers by responding with ` 2 ` ( i . e . no quick pick ), the vru plays the script in fig5 b . first , the vru requests , based on the lottery profile , that the subscriber enters their 6 two - digit numbers within the range of 1 to 48 for n . j ., or 1 to 54 for n . y . the subscriber will utilize their touch tone phone to enter their 6 two - digit numbers . the vru plays a message &# 34 ; enter your six two digit numbers from 1 to 54 .&# 34 ; in the example in fig5 b if the subscriber enters their numbers , then the vru plays a message &# 34 ; you entered 5 10 16 18 29 37 press 1 to confirm or 2 to re - enter &# 34 ;. if the subscriber does not confirm then the vru again requests the subscribers numbers . else if the subscriber confirms then the vru sends the wager to the host , which calls the host wager process , see off page connector 10 . 0 and go to fig1 described herein . the vru sends the subscriber &# 39 ; s wager to the host to be processed , by passing to the host the subscriber id , the lottery and game selected , the 6 two - digit numbers entered , and that the subscriber chose their own numbers . the vru then requests the subscriber to enter another wager . at this point , if they choose to enter another series of numbers , they would be transferred back up to the point where the vru requests the entry of their numbers , and they would stay in this loop until such time as they choose to do something else . similar to that described above for the quick pick option , at the conclusion of wagering or selecting their own numbers , the vru will tell the subscriber to please hold on for confirmation , the host would have then come back to the vru with a confirmation or ticket number which will be played back to the subscriber . the vru , as in the quick - pick option , would now requests what they would like to do next , and based on the response , they will be transferred to the appropriate process or the call will be terminated . this concludes the discussion on the 6 - digit lotto process . fig6 shows a flow chart of the 3 - digit number game process of the vru . as earlier described , the processes are essentially the same except for the number of numbers being entered and the range . in the case of 3 - digit numbers , the range of numbers allowed is from 1 to 999 . again , the subscriber has the quickpick option and the option to enter their own numbers . as seen from the flow chart , the process works substantially the same way as the 6 - digit lotto process described above . fig7 shows a flow chart of the four - digit number process of the vru . again , this game is processed by the system essentially the same way as the 6 - digit lotto option by choosing the quickpick option or the entry of enter their own numbers . in contrast , the subscriber can select from a range from 1 to 9 , 999 . fig8 shows a flow chart of the keno process of the vru . the keno game typically works so that in order for the subscriber to win , they must choose 7 of the 11 numbers drawn by the lottery to win a prize , from a range of unique 2 - digit numbers between 1 and 84 . lotteries describe this in many ways , talk about it and , in particular , in pennsylvania , the keno game is 7 out of 11 from 184 . once again , the subscriber can select a quickpick or enter their own numbers . if they select a quickpick , the randomizing routine would generate the numbers . if they choose to enter and confirm their own numbers , they will be asked to enter their 7 two - digit numbers . that concludes the keno game process . fig9 show a flow chart of the quickpick process , called by the host whenever the subscriber chooses that option in any of the aforementioned games selected . in the quickpick process , first the host obtains from the vru the subscriber id , the lottery , the game ( such as lotto 3 - digit , 4 - digit , or keno ), a quickpick option signal to indicate that the subscriber chose quickpick , and the amount of the quickpick option . in our example , we spoke about $ 10 . 00 , which in n . j . means that 10 games or 10 wagers will be placed . after the host process receives this information , it examines the state lottery profile for the game in question to obtain the allowable number range , and passes that information on to the random number generator which would generate the appropriate numbers for the game . it will do this until the wager amount is exhausted . the host will send each wager back to the vru . it will also call the host wager process to actually place the wagers with the state lottery and ultimately return to the vru with the quickpick selected . that concludes the quickpick process . fig1 shows a flow chart of the host wager process . the system calls this process from various points in the overall systems software . for instance , the system calls this process from the quickpick process , or from the process when the subscriber chooses to enter their own numbers . in either case , the host wager process needs the information such as the subscriber id , the lottery , the game , the type of wager -- be it quickpick or individual personal numbers -- and the actual numbers being entered . the numbers obviously vary depending on the game , but the process is the same regardless of the game . so this information is passed from the vru . the wager will be recorded in the subscriber &# 39 ; s wager file for the purpose of audit and monthly statements . it will also be recorded in the state lottery wager file so that both the system and the lottery can keep track of the wagers for that particular day that were placed with the lottery . for each wager the system updates the subscriber master file , specifically the open balance to wager field based on the amount of the wager . it reduces that amount by the size of the wager and the service charge . there are situations where the system may need to be connected directly to the lottery computer . the system sends the wager or wagers down to the lottery computer and receives back the ticket number or confirmation number . that ticket number or confirmation number will be utilized to update the subscriber wager file and at the same time will be utilized to update the lottery file . it is this same number which goes back to the vru and played to the subscriber . where the system is not connected to the lottery &# 39 ; s computer , the ticket number or confirmation number will be a number which is generated by the system . all information will be transferred back to the routines which called the host wager process , be it the quickpick process or be it the subscriber &# 39 ; s entry of their own numbers for a particular game . that concludes the description on the host wager process ( see fig1 ). fig1 shows a flow chart of the host credit card authorization process . the vru calls this process only during enrollment to elicit various information about the subscriber , specifically , name , address , city , state , zip , home phone , business phone , social security number , credit rating , etc . the aforementioned enrollment process , shown in fig2 calls this host authorization process , the vru provides it with the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card number and expiration date . the host , which is directly connected to the credit card company computer , from which the subscriber would have authorized the system to obtain the necessary information to complete their enrollment . the system will have access to the information and retrieve it back into the host computer . if there is no information to be obtained because the credit card number provided by the subscriber is invalid , an error message would go back to the vru and the vru would transfer the caller to the customer service agent . if the information we requested was retrievable , the host updates the subscriber master file with that information , looks at the available subscriber id and pin file for the next available subscriber numbers , and adds them to the master file . a message would go back to the vru indicating that the credit card is valid , allowing the enrollment process to continue . the vru then transfers the subscriber to a customer service agent for verbal verification of all information entered . fig1 shows a flow chart of the host additional funds process . the host calls the process when additional drawdowns of funds from the credit card are needed for the subscriber . the host checks a bad credit card file , and if the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card number does not appear in that file , the credit card will allow a draw down of funds up to the limit allowed without a direct communication for authorization . the system has a database with a list of the latest bad cards provided by the credit card company , so the host compares the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card number to the bad credit card database to verify it . if the subscriber &# 39 ; s card is not on the list , then the host can draw down funds to whatever limit is allowed by the credit card to the system . ( for example , most credit card companies establish a limit of say $ 50 . 00 to a particular retails , as long as , the draw down is $ 50 . 00 or less , there is no need for direct communication with the credit card company to obtain authorization , and thereby the credit card company will pre - approve that limit without the direct communication .) the advantage to this approach is that the system minimizes the interaction with the credit card company because these transactions typically take 10 to 15 seconds to accomplish , perhaps even longer , thus avoiding lengthening the time of the call as there are costs that are associated with that . and assuming that the subscriber &# 39 ; s card was not on the bad card list , the host can draw down the appropriate amount of funds and essentially return a signal to the vru saying that funds are now available . in addition , a transaction is sent to that credit card company &# 39 ; s daily charge file , transferred to the credit card company overnight , to assure that funds are received from the credit card company . if the subscriber &# 39 ; s credit card is on the bad card list , the host sends a signal back to the vru and the system returns to off - page connection 2 . 2 to indicate that a credit problem exists . the subscriber is then transferred to a customer service agent who knows that a credit problem exists , and would request a different credit card from the caller or would request some direction from the caller as to what we should do in order to allow them to wager . that concludes page 3 , the validate process . some of the other features that the system is designed to accommodate include : 1 ) determine winning numbers in other states ; 2 ) determine if a ticket which they hold , regardless of the lottery was a winner ; 3 ) determine what wagers were made over a period of time ; 4 ) place sports wagers ; and 5 ) place horse racing wagers . while the invention has been described in its preferred embodiment , it is to be understood that the words which have been used are words of description rather than limitation and that changes may be made within the purview of the appended claims without departing from the true scope and spirit of the invention in its broader aspects .	6
preferred embodiments of the present invention are hereinafter described in conjunction with the drawings . an experiment was conducted on an exposure apparatus for image formation according to one embodiment of the present invention , using an image formation process unit 10 shown in fig1 . an exposure apparatus 1 is provided between a charger 12 and a development unit 13 along the perimeter of a photoreceptor drum 11 that rotates in direction a represented by the arrow in fig1 and a charging process , an exposure process and a development process are successively carried out on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 by image formation process unit 10 . photoreceptor drum 11 includes a photosensitive layer formed of an undercoat layer ( ucl ), a charge generation layer ( cgl ) and a charge transport layer ( ctl ) deposited in this order on a cylindrical base made of a conductive material such as aluminum . the photoreceptor drum is a laminated type organic photoreceptor having a photosensitive layer with its surface negatively charged . charger 12 includes a casing 12 a , a wire 12 b and a grid 12 c each connected to a high - voltage power supply . grid 12 c is arranged with a distance of approximately 1 to 2 mm from the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 . the amount of charges generated by corona discharge , released from wire 12 b and subsequently arriving at the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 is controlled by a bias voltage applied to grid 12 c in order to charge the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 to a desired surface potential . referring to fig2 exposure apparatus 1 includes an infrared semiconductor laser 2 ( hereinafter ld 2 ) with a wavelength of 780 nm as a light source , a collimator lens 3 , an aperture 4 and an objective lens 5 . a laser beam emitted from ld 2 is converted into a parallel beam by collimator lens 3 and shaped by aperture 4 to generate a spot with a desired exposure spot diameter so as to form an image on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 by objective lens 5 . ld 2 is driven with a predetermined power by a well - known laser driver 6 ( manufactured by kino melles griot corporation for example ) and its on / off is controlled with a predetermined pulse width . the laser beam emitted from exposure apparatus 1 irradiates the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 charged to a predetermined surface potential , and accordingly a latent electrostatic image is formed on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 through photoconduction in the photosensitive layer . referring to fig3 development unit 13 includes a container 31 holding one - component developer 36 therein and further includes a development roller 32 , a supply roller 33 , a doctor roller 34 and a collection roller 35 each supported rotatably on an axis . developer 36 in container 31 is conveyed by supply roller 33 onto the surface of development roller 32 to be held by doctor roller 34 on the surface of development roller 32 with a predetermined layer thickness . the surface of development roller 32 passing the position opposing doctor roller 34 then faces the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 . developer 36 held on the surface of development roller 32 thus electrostatically adheres to the electrostatic latent image on photoreceptor drum 11 . consequently , a developer image is formed . developer 36 held on the surface of development roller 32 is charged with the same polarity as that of the charge potential on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 . a bias voltage is applied to development roller 32 that is controlled to allow , when the potential of the latent electrostatic image formed on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 ranges from a half of the charge potential of the photoreceptor drum 11 to 0 , developer 36 held on development roller 32 to electrostatically adhere to the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 . the surface of development roller 32 passing the position facing the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 then faces the surface of collection roller 35 , and accordingly developer 36 remaining on the surface of development roller 32 is collected into container 31 . image formation process unit 10 having the structure as discussed above was used for an experiment to observe image reproducibility with respect to image patterns formed as shown in fig4 i . e ., a periodic - line pattern 40 , an isolated - dot pattern 41 and an isolated - line pattern 42 . these patterns were formed with a margin of 6 p between patterns for avoiding cross talk between exposure spots of respective image patterns , and periodic line pattern 40 was formed with lines each having width p that are arranged at intervals of 2 p . a developer image of each image pattern formed on the surface of photoreceptor drum 11 was stripped therefrom by means of an adhesive tape , transferred , and enlarged by a microscope for evaluation . respective proper sizes of the diameter of an isolated dot and the line width were both 2 times dot pitch p . results of the experiment are described below . fig5 a to 5 c correspond respectively to exposure spot diameters d of 60 μm , 40 μm and 30 μm . photoreceptor drum 11 having its photosensitive layer of 20 μm in thickness was used to form an image with a resolution of 1200 dpi by using a varied exposure energy density ( μj / cm 2 ). resultant images have respective states as shown in fig5 a to 5 c . normal values indicated on the axis of abscissas shown in fig5 a to 5 c were determined , relative to the periodic line pattern , by defining a normal value as “ 1 ” with respect to the ratio of 50 % of line width b to interval a of lines ( duty ratio ) as shown in fig6 and relative to the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern , by defining a normal value as “ 1 ” with respect to the dot diameter and the line width equal to pixel pitch p . as shown in fig5 a , when exposure spot diameter d is 60 μm and equal to 2 . 8 p , normal value of only “ 0 ” or “ 2 ” ( duty ratio is 0 % or 100 %) occurs regarding the periodic line pattern . it is thus impossible to produce a periodic line pattern having an intermediate duty ratio . namely , no image is formed or a resultant image is solid black . more specifically , exposure energy has a distribution as shown in fig7 a in the direction orthogonal to the line direction of a periodic line pattern formed under the above - described conditions . it is understood from fig7 a that , supposing that the potential of a latent electrostatic image varies in accordance with change of the exposure energy value , the latent image potential contrast of the periodic line pattern ( difference between a value of a white line of the periodic line pattern and a peak value of the periodic line pattern ) is merely 28 % relative to the latent image potential contrast of 100 % obtained when exposure spots do not overlap each other . a reason for this is that the latent image potential in the direction orthogonal to the line direction is rendered uniform by being significantly affected by cross talk between exposure spots of adjacent lines in the periodic line pattern . on the other hand , the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns can be formed with respective proper sizes ( 12 times pixel pitch p ). however , when an isolated - line pattern formed of isolated - dot patterns continuing in one direction is formed , influence of cross talk between adjacent dots causes a considerable difference in the latent image potential between the isolated - line pattern and the isolated - dot pattern as shown in fig7 b . resultant phenomena are that an exposure energy forming an isolated - line pattern of a desired size could not form an isolated - dot pattern of a desired size and that an exposure energy forming an isolated - dot pattern of a desired size could produce an isolated - line pattern with an increased line width . these isolated - line and isolated - dot patterns are basic image patterns constituting various images . therefore , such phenomena could be a chief cause of image - quality deterioration . in order to prevent these phenomena and maintain a high image quality , a high image reproducibility is required with respect to both of the isolated - line pattern and the isolated - dot pattern and thus an appropriate exposure energy must be applied to each image pattern . as clearly seen from fig5 a , when exposure spot diameter d is 2 . 8 times dot pitch p , the exposure energy density for producing an isolated - line pattern of a proper size is approximately 0 . 1 μj / cm 2 and that for producing an isolated - dot pattern of a proper size is approximately 0 . 3 μj / cm 2 . in view of this , it would be possible to achieve a high image reproducibility for both of the isolated - line pattern and the isolated - dot pattern by applying an exposure energy to the isolated - dot pattern that is three times an exposure energy density applied to isolated - line pattern . then , as shown in fig8 a , the pulse height ( drive power ) of a drive pulse for each dot was changed depending on the image patterns by using power control means provided to laser driver 6 . in this way , drive energy supplied from laser driver 6 to ld 2 was controlled according to an image pattern so as to form an image . consequently , reproducibility could be enhanced for an isolated - dot pattern with a resolution of 1200 dpi having a dot diameter of approximately 30 μm and an enhanced reproducibility is also achieved for an isolated - line pattern . the power control means controlling the pulse height of a drive pulse per dot could be employed to accomplish image reproducibility for both of the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern simultaneously . the discussion above refers to photoreceptor drum 11 having its photosensitive layer of 20 μm in thickness for forming an image with a resolution of 1200 dpi . a superior image reproducibility could also be achieved for both of the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern by using photoreceptor drum 11 having its photosensitive layer of 15 μm or 25 μm in thickness and applying the same exposure energy ratio as employed for the photosensitive layer of 20 μm in thickness . when exposure spot diameter d is 3 . 8 p , i . e ., 80 μm , there was an increased difference in the latent image potential between the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern as shown in fig9 compared with that when exposure spot diameter d is 2 . 8 p . then , for spot diameter d of 3 . 8 p , exposure energy supplied to ld 2 for forming an image of the isolated - dot pattern was defined as an energy three times or higher the exposure energy supplied for forming an image of the isolated - line pattern . accordingly , a high image reproducibility could be achieved for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns . it is accordingly understood that when d is greater than 2 . 8 p , exposure energy ed applied to the isolated - dot pattern and exposure energy es applied to the isolated - line pattern should be defined as ed / es & gt ; 3 . 0 . when exposure spot diameter d is 1 . 9 p , i . e ., 40 μm as shown in fig5 b , an exposure energy of 0 . 3 μj / cm 2 and that of 0 . 2 μj / cm 2 can be supplied respectively for the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern to form images of respective proper sizes . data obtained regarding exposure spot diameter d equal to 2 . 8 p can be taken into consideration to achieve a high image reproducibility for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns , when exposure spot diameter d is in a range expressed by 1 . 9 p & lt ; d ≦ 2 . 8 p , by employing ed / es in a range expressed by 1 . 5 & lt ; ed / es ≦ 3 . 0 . when exposure spot diameter d is 1 . 4 p , i . e ., 30 μm , as shown in fig5 c , exposure energy of 0 . 4 μj / cm 2 can be supplied for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns to form images of respective proper sizes , which means that no change is necessary of exposure energy depending on the image patterns . data obtained regarding exposure spot diameter d of 1 . 9 p can be taken into consideration to achieve an excellent image reproducibility for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns , when d is in a range expressed by 1 . 4 p & lt ; d ≦ 1 . 9 p by setting ed / es in a range expressed by 1 . 0 & lt ; ed / s ≦ 1 . 5 . fig1 shows a resultant relation between exposure energy ed to be applied to the isolated - dot pattern and exposure energy es to be applied to the isolated - line pattern with respect to spot diameter d which is varied . fig1 a to 11 c show a relation , which is determined through analytical simulation , between an exposure energy density and an image size ( dot diameter , line width ) when the exposure spot diameter is changed . referring to fig1 a , when an image pattern with a resolution of 1200 dpi is formed by using exposure spot diameter d equal to 60 μm ( 2 . 8 p ), an exposure energy density for achieving a proper image size 30 μm for the isolated - dot pattern is 0 . 12 μj / cm 2 and that for the isolated - line pattern is 0 . 22 μj / cm 2 . the exposure energy must be controlled by setting ed / es to approximately 1 . 8 in order to produce both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns with respective proper sizes . referring to fig1 b , when an image pattern of a resolution 1200 dpi is formed by using exposure spot diameter d equal to 40 μm ( 1 . 9 p ), an exposure energy density for achieving a proper image size 30 μm is 0 . 17 μj / cm 2 for the isolated - dot pattern and that for the isolated - line pattern is 0 . 22 μj / cm 2 . therefore , the exposure energy must be controlled for generating the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern both with proper image sizes respectively by setting ed / es to approximately 1 . 3 . further , referring to fig1 c , when an image pattern of a resolution 1200 dpi is formed by using exposure spot diameter d equal to 30 μm ( 1 . 4 p ), an exposure energy density for accomplishing a proper image size 30 μm is 0 . 2 μj / cm 2 for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns . then no exposure energy control is required for producing both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns with proper image sizes respectively . it is clearly seen from the results shown in fig1 a to 11 c that , when exposure spot diameter d is in a range exceeding 1 . 4 p , an exposure energy fixed at a certain value cannot produce a high image reproducibility for both of the isolated - dot and isolated - line patterns . the exposure energy should thus be changed depending on image patterns . however , the exposure energy ratio ( ed / es ) with respect to the isolated - dot pattern and the isolated - line pattern determined through the experiment does not necessarily coincide with an exposure energy ratio for an actual image formation . a possible reason is that no consideration is taken for the thickness of the ctl of photoreceptor drum 11 in the present experiment . therefore , if a photoreceptor drum having a thinner ctl is employed in the experiment , a latent electrostatic image can more accurately be formed through an exposure process with less diffusion of carriers . consequently , an experimental result would match the exposure energy ratio in an actual image formation . in the experiment herein discussed , the exposure energy is controlled by keeping constant the exposure time ( pulse width of a drive pulse supplied to ld 2 ) and varying the exposure power ( pulse height of the drive pulse ) ( power control method ). alternatively , the exposure power may be fixed while the exposure time may be varied , i . e ., pulse - width control method may be employed , or another control method by which both of the exposure time and exposure power are varied may also be used . fig8 b shows a waveform of a drive pulse applied to ld 2 for setting exposure energy ratio to 3 by means of pulse modulation method with a constant exposure power . the experiment discussed above is conducted by employing an image formation process through which a latent electrostatic image is made visible by means of one - component development method . however , a similar result would be accomplished when a two - component development method or jumping development method is applied to a development process to form an image . although the present invention has been described and illustrated in detail , it is clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and is not to be taken by way of limitation , the spirit and scope of the present invention being limited only by the terms of the appended claims .	7
fig1 is a perspective view of a use - monitoring closure according to the invention , shown attached to the open end of a tennis ball can . fig2 is a partial vertical sectional view , taken along 2 -- 2 of fig1 of the fig1 closure and can . fig3 is a vertical sectional view of the two parts of the fig1 closure , shown before their assembly . referring to the drawings , there is shown in fig1 use - monitoring closure 10 attached to the top end of conventional , cylindrical tennis ball can 12 . as illustrated in fig3 use - monitoring closure 10 is assembled from two parts , snap - on cap 14 and rotatable pointer 16 . cap 14 has flat , circular central panel 18 around the periphery of which are imprinted use indicia 20 ( fig1 ), consisting of the digits 0 through 9 , equidistantly spaced in a complete circle . at the center of panel 18 is small circular hole 22 ( approximately 0 . 020 &# 34 ; in diameter before assembly , fig3 ). surrounding panel 18 is a raised annular ledge 24 . projecting upwardly along the top surface of ledge 24 is narrow rib 26 , displaced inwardly from the outer edge approximately one - third of the width of ledge 24 . the outer edge of ledge 24 merges into a downwardly projecting peripheral skirt 28 . on the inner surface of skirt 28 is annular bead 30 , forming annular pocket 32 ( having a diameter of about 2 . 96 &# 34 ;) into which the top end seam 34 of the tennis ball can 12 fits when closure 10 is snapped onto it , as shown in fig2 . the lower portion of annular bead 30 is beveled slightly outwardly and downwardly to cause skirt 28 to flex outwardly during the snapping operation so bead 30 easily passes over end seam 34 . cap 14 is preferably molded as a unitary structure out of a soft plastic material such as polyethylene or polypropylene , with a thickness of approximately 25 mils across panel 18 , ledge 24 , and the upper portion of skirt 28 and a thickness of about twice this amount across the width of bead 30 . this choice of material and thickness provides cap 14 with sufficient flexibility , as well as durability , to be readily and repeatedly snapped on and snapped off tennis ball can 12 . pointer 16 has thin ( 1 / 32 &# 34 ; thick ), rectangular - shaped bar 36 , of length approximately one - half of the diameter of cap 14 , cylindrically - shaped hub 38 dependent from the bottom surface of one end of bar 36 , and , projecting downwardly from hub 38 , short vertical post 40 ( approximately 0 . 063 &# 34 ; long and 0 . 093 &# 34 ; in diameter ), with an enlarged , somewhat pointed , head 42 ( approximately 0 . 078 &# 34 ; long and 0 . 105 &# 34 ; in diameter ). pointer 16 is assembled to cap 14 by forcing head 42 and post 40 through hole 22 so that one end rests on the inner portion of ledge 24 and the other end is rotatably pivoted at the center of panel 18 . head 42 and post 40 are of a much larger diameter than hole 22 . as a consequence , when head 42 and post 40 are forced through hole 22 , that portion of panel 18 immediately surrounding central hole 22 is stretched downward and outward and forms annular skirt 44 around post 40 and base of head 42 , as shown in fig2 . the forces of reaction of the plastic of this annular skirt 44 against its stretched deformation serve to pull head 42 , post 40 , and hub 38 into tight contact with annular skirt 44 . this contact provides frictional resistance to rotation which , while large enough to secure pointer 16 against unintentional movement from its set position , is small enough to allow the force of a single finger tip to reset pointer position when required . the diameter of hub 38 is more than twice that of head 42 , and is sufficient to completely seal off the top surface of annular skirt 44 and so prevent the entry of dirt and moisture into can 12 of tennis balls 46 . however , if for some reason leakage at this seam should occur , the tight fit of annular skirt 44 around post 40 and the base of head 42 provides an additional seal against moisture and dirt contamination of tennis balls 46 within can 12 . pointer 16 is preferably molded as a unitary structure from a plastic material which is harder than the plastic of cap 14 , for example nylon or polystyrene . the choice of harder plastic for pointer 16 facilitates the effective formation of the pivot structure described above ; yet it allows pointer 16 to be flexed easily when closure 10 is snapped on , or snapped off , a tennis ball can 12 , because pointer bar 36 of pointer 16 10 is relatively thin ( 1 / 32 &# 34 ;). in spite of the thinness of pointer bar 36 , however , the tip of a person &# 39 ; s finger can effect substantial engagement with the edge of pointer bar 36 in order to reset the latter &# 39 ; s position , because bar 36 is supported some distance ( approximately 50 mils ) above the surface of panel 18 by ledge 24 at one end and by hub 38 at its other end . rib 26 , which runs around the top surface of ledge 24 , is preferably about 35 mils high , and because it is somewhat higher than the thickness of bar 36 , it serves to prevent the adjacent end of bar 36 from being caught or snagged on objects during handling and storage of tennis ball can 12 . additional functions of both ledge 24 and rib 26 are to provide structural rigidity to cap 14 , to help maintain the resilient biasing of peripheral skirt 28 against the side of tennis ball can 12 , and to provide a hinge point to facilitate snapping cap 14 on and off can 12 . as described above , use - monitoring closure 10 is preferably fabricated by the molding of two relatively uncomplicated plastic parts which are then assembled in a single step , i . e ., pushing them together . this simple design allows closure 10 to be manufactured at very low cost . another advantage of both the simplicity and the flexibility of this plastic structure is that it imparts exceptional durability to use - monitoring closure 10 . this durability is especially important because tennis ball cans tend to receive a fair amount of abuse : they get kicked and stepped on on the tennis court , and they get stuffed or thrown into equipment bags , lockers , trunks of cars , and closets . in employing the present invention to monitor the amount of use of his tennis balls , a tennis player can let the numerals on closure 10 represent any unit of measure of use that he finds convenient , such as number of matches , sets , hours , or games played . each time he plays with a particular can of tennis balls , the player would simply increment the setting of pointer 16 by the additional amount of use that the balls have had . because of the analog nature of the use - indication provided by the circularly - disposed indicia 20 on closure 10 , a player can keep track of fractional units of use as well as whole units , where this is appropriate ; e . g . if one is accumulating hours of use , and one plays with the balls for an hour and a half , a pointer setting exactly midway between two digits can represent the half hour . although use indicia 20 consist of just the numerals 0 - 9 , few if any tennis players would find this limiting . the reason is that for almost all tennis players -- with the possible exception of beginners -- tennis balls are completely spent within ten hours or sets of play , and most players are likely to choose one of these units of use ( or the generally larger unit of matches played ) to monitor the condition of their tennis balls , rather than a smaller unit such as games played . in any case , for those rare cases when a can of balls does accumulate more than ten units of play , one can let the pointer begin a new revolution of the dial , and then one must simply recall that the new settings are actually ten more than they read . there will probably be little difficulty in doing this , because a visual inspection should make it obvious whether a ball has for example two hours of play on it or twelve . e . g ., instead of the numerals 0 - 9 , one could have more numerals , e . g ., 0 - 16 , to record larger amounts of usage . also , although in our preferred embodiment the digits 0 through 9 are imprinted around the periphery of central panel 18 , these digits could be imprinted elsewhere on cap 14 , for instance on ledge 24 or on the outside surface of skirt 28 , so long as the registration of pointer 16 with the digits can be clearly ascertained . also , instead of a rotating pointer , one could have a rotatable disk with numbers around its periphery and a registering index mark at the edge of the cap , the disk being either centrally pivoted on the cap or slidably mounted in a circumferential groove or guide ; or an annular ring , similarly numbered and slidably mounted at the periphery of the cap . other alternatives to the rotating pointer of our preferred embodiment could be a marker that , e . g ., slides along a track ( e . g ., circular or linear ) secured to cap 14 , adjacent to indicia ; or a small token that is held to the cap by magnetism and can be moved around to cover up or point to numerals on the cap ; or a movable cover on the cap that covers all except one digit ; or an electronic display device that increments the displayed value when a button is pushed .	8
according to this disclosure a system 10 includes hospital beds 12 of different types as indicated diagrammatically in fig1 . each of beds 12 communicates , either via a wired connection or a wireless connection , with a respective system interface 14 . system interfaces 14 also may be of different types , although the number of types of interfaces 14 will typically not correspond to the number of bed types . accordingly , fig1 suggests that there may be “ n ” bed types and “ m ” system interface types . for example , system interfaces 14 that are able to communicate with multiple different types of hospital beds 12 are contemplated by this disclosure . thus , n may be greater than , less than , or equal to m according to different embodiments contemplated by this disclosure . system interfaces 14 are communicatively coupled via information technology ( it ) infrastructure 16 with a bed data manager 18 . bed data manager 18 is sometimes referred to herein as bed data manager server 18 or simply as server 18 . server 18 receives bed data sent from beds 12 of the various types and normalizes the bed data into a common format for storage in a database that is either included in server 18 or associated with server 18 . end user computer devices 20 access the normalized bed data via the it infrastructure 16 . according to this disclosure , server 18 has software that permits end users of computer devices 20 to select a particular communication protocol from among a plurality of available communication protocols that the normalized data is to be provided to each respective end user computer device 20 . as suggested in fig1 , there may be up to “ x ” end user computer devices 20 that receive normalized bed data according to a selected communication protocol from server 18 . the number x of end user computer devices 20 may be greater than , less than , or equal to m and / or n according to different embodiments contemplated by this disclosure . in some embodiments , server 18 is configured to receive bed data from up to five hundred ( 500 ) beds 12 . as also shown diagrammatically in fig1 , server 18 is configured to transmit bed data to computer devices 22 in a raw data format . that is , the bed data is transmitted to computer devices 22 in the same format as it is received from the various beds 12 . server 18 communicates with one or more of computer devices 22 via it infrastructure 16 in some embodiments . alternatively or additionally , server 18 communicates with one or more computer devices 22 via a dedicated communication link 24 which may be a wired datalink or wireless datalink according to this disclosure . just to be clear , in some embodiments , one group of computer devices 22 may communicate with server 18 via it infrastructure 16 and another group of computer devices 22 may communicate with server 18 via respective dedicated communication links 24 . similarly , some or all of end user computer devices 20 may communicate with server 18 via dedicated communication links ( not shown ) in lieu of it infrastructure 16 . the computer devices 20 , 22 communicating via dedicated communication links are co - located with server 18 , in some instances , thereby enabling a direct wired connection to server 18 . it infrastructure 16 , as illustrated diagrammatically in fig1 , is intended to encompass the various other hardware and software that exists in a facility , such as a healthcare facility , or across multiple facilities , that permits computer devices , such as beds 12 , system interfaces 14 , computer devices 20 , 22 , and so forth to communicate with at least one other computer device . it infrastructure typically includes things such as gateways , routers , servers , transmitters , receivers , transceivers , wiring , connection ports , and so on . the hardware and software of the it infrastructure is typically acquired and installed in a facility at a time different than the time at which a facility may acquire and install beds 12 , interfaces 14 , server 18 , and computer devices 20 , 22 . in some embodiments , server 18 transmits raw bed data to computer devices 22 at the same frequency with which it is received from the various beds 12 . thus , if beds 12 are transmitting bed data at a time interval of , say , every 100 milliseconds , then server 18 , in turn , transmits the bed data to computer devices 22 about every 100 milliseconds . accordingly , it is contemplated that users who wish to receive bed data in its raw format at such high frequency must subscribe to server 18 for this purpose . in contrast and as will be discussed in further detail below , users of computer devices 20 typically will not wish to receive bed data as frequently as it is received by server 18 . according to this disclosure , therefore , users of computer devices 20 are able to select the frequency at which server 18 transmits bed data to their respective computer devices 20 . the time interval or frequency at which server 18 transmits bed data to computers 20 can vary from computer 20 to computer 20 according to this disclosure . system interfaces 14 may sometimes include bed interface units ( biu &# 39 ; s ), network interface units ( niu &# 39 ; s ), or wireless interface units ( wiu &# 39 ; s ) of the type available from hill - rom company , inc . discussion of the functionality and details of biu &# 39 ; s , niu &# 39 ; s and wiu &# 39 ; s may be found in u . s . pat . nos . 7 , 868 , 740 ; 7 , 852 , 208 ; 7 , 746 , 218 ; 7 , 538 , 659 and 7 , 319 , 386 and in u . s . patent application publication nos . 2009 / 0217080 ; 2009 / 0214009 ; 2009 / 0212956 ; and 2009 / 0212925 , for example , each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference . other types of system interfaces 14 include ethernet ports such as rj - 45 connector ports as well as rs - 232 ports or the like . wireless access points ( wap &# 39 ; s ) are also considered to be system interfaces 14 according to this disclosure . hospital beds 12 are of different types as previously mentioned . the term hospital bed as used herein , including in the claims , is intended to cover beds of all types and in all environments , not just those found in hospitals . of course , the beds 12 contemplated herein have the ability to communicate bed data to remote computer devices . in some instances , the beds 12 are also able to receive data or commands from remote computer devices . it will be appreciated that each different type of bed 12 typically will communicate different types of data and the data may be formatted in different ways . table 1 below is an example of the type of bed data that is available from six different types of hospital beds 12 . in the example of table 1 , bed type 1 is the totalcare ® bed , bed type 2 is the versacare ® bed , bed type 3 is the careassist ® es bed , bed type 4 is the advanta ™ 2 bed , bed type 5 is the advance ™ bed , and bed type 6 is the advanta ™ bed , each of which is or was marketed by hill - rom company , inc . beds 12 of other types which have other types of bed data are , of course , within scope of this disclosure . based on table 1 , it will be appreciated that the number of bits being transmitted from beds 12 of different types may vary widely depending upon the amount of information to be conveyed . according to one embodiment of system 10 contemplated by this disclosure , server 18 is capable of receiving data from up to five hundred ( 500 ) beds 12 . referring now to fig2 a and 2b , various software modules are shown diagrammatically as being included in bed data manager server 18 . the various modules comprise software code having the associated functions as herein described and as further explained in one or more of the attached appendices , which are considered to be part of the written description of this provisional patent application . in some embodiments , the modules may be included in separate software packages that are installed in the memory of server 18 via copying from associated disks or uploaded separately to server 18 from one or more other computer devices . in other embodiments , the modules are included in a single software package or software routine such that each module is a sub - portion or subroutine of the overall routine . regardless of whether the modules described below are provided to server 18 in a piecemeal fashion or as a single , large software routine , the modules work together to perform the functions described herein . server 18 executes the instructions included in the software modules stored in memory of server 18 . as shown in fig2 b , the software stored in memory of server 18 includes an application server 2 module 26 which , in turn , includes an operating system services host environment module 28 and a cross - cutting module 30 . cross - cutting module 30 includes a system coordination service module 32 . operating system services host environment module 28 includes a data services layer module 34 , a business logic layer module 36 and a data access layer module 38 . the data access layer module 38 includes a bed interface services module 40 which includes interface service 1 through m modules 42 . modules 42 include the software that allows server 18 to receive bed data from the various system interfaces 14 . in fig2 a and 2b , the it infrastructure 16 is omitted . business logic layer module 36 includes a data normalization service module 44 and a command arbitration service module 46 . the data normalization service module 44 includes the software instructions that , when executed , normalizes the incoming bed data from the various bed types 12 into a common format . such software instructions for normalizing the bed data , therefore , rearranges and modifies the incoming bits and bytes of data into a single , common format . the command arbitration service module 46 includes software instructions that when executed , passes the bed data in its raw format ( i . e ., the format in which it is received from each bed 12 ) to a data distribution service ( publish / subscribe ) module 48 of a data services layer module 34 which , in turn , publishes or sends the raw bed data to one or more computer devices 22 that have subscribed to receive such raw bed data . command arbitration service module 46 also includes software instructions that , when executed , passes bed command messages received from computer devices 22 to the bed 12 for which the bed command message is designated . module 46 sends each bed command message to module 40 which , in turn , sends the bed command message through the appropriate module 42 and system interface 14 to the appropriate bed 12 . as indicated diagrammatically in fig2 b , the illustrative computer device 22 includes a bed command provider module 49 which includes the software that , when executed , sends the bed command messages to module 48 of server 18 . in some embodiments , the programming of module 49 is done by the same party that manufactures one or more of the various bed types 12 and is installed specifically on computer device 22 as its own software package or as part of a larger software package . in other embodiments , module 49 is uploaded to computer device 22 from server 18 . an example of a bed command that is sent from computer devices 22 to beds 12 include commands to arm or disarm a patient position monitoring system of the bed 12 . computer devices 22 that do not contain module 49 are within in the scope of this disclosure . that is , systems 10 in which some , all , or none of computer devices 22 include module 49 are contemplated by this disclosure . data services layer module 34 also includes a data persistence service module 50 . server 18 includes a database server module 52 which includes , for example , an sql server module 54 which has an sql database 56 . data persistence service module 50 passes normalized bed data to the sql database 56 for storage . in some embodiments , as bed data from a particular bed 12 changes , the sql database 56 is updated only with the changing data and the other , unchanged data remains . in other embodiments , the sql database 56 is updated with all of the bed data received from each of the beds 12 regardless of whether some of the data has not changed from the prior data transmission from a particular bed . server 18 also includes an application server 1 module 58 which includes a web server module 60 as shown in fig2 a . module 60 , in turn , includes a services layer module 62 , a business logic layer module 64 and a data access layer module 66 . module 66 includes an ado . net entity framework data model module 68 which further includes an ado . net entity framework database connection module 70 that interfaces with sql server module 54 to obtain normalized bed data . module 66 also includes an entity relationships module 72 to maintain entity relationships , an entity contexts module 74 to maintain entity contexts , and a data access entities module 76 . business logic layer module 64 includes a domain services module 78 , a server - side data validation logic module 80 , a server - side business rules module 82 , a business entities module 84 , and an entity metadata module 86 . the domain services module 78 interfaces with the ado . net entity framework data model module 68 as shown in fig2 a . services layer module 62 include a wcf ria services server module 88 and communication service 1 through y modules 90 . module 88 interfaces with module 78 . modules 90 communicate with each computer device 20 that desires to receive normalized bed data according to a respective data communication protocol associated with each of communication service 1 through y modules 90 . according to this disclosure , the number “ x ” of computer devices 20 in system 10 may be greater than , equal to , or less than the number “ y ” of communication service modules 90 . in the illustrative example , communication service 1 module 90 communicates with computer 20 . it should be understood , based on this disclosure , that each of modules 90 may be in communication with a multitude of computer devices 20 even though fig2 a illustrates only one module 90 communicating with one computer device 20 . in some embodiments , modules 90 of server 18 include two modules 90 that communicate normalized bed data according to two different communication protocols . in some such embodiments , the communication protocols include an odata atom protocol and a json endpoint protocol . computer devices 20 may be included as part of an electronic medical records ( emr ) system , an admission / discharge / transfer ( adt ) system , a workflow system , a nurse call system , or any other computer system for which there is a reason to consume , have access to , or store bed data from beds 12 . as also shown in fig2 a computer device 20 includes a web browser module 92 with a plugin container module 94 . according to this disclosure , modules 90 of server 18 upload software plug - ins to each plugin container module 94 of computer devices 20 . in the illustrative example , the software plug - ins uploaded via the associated communication service 1 module 90 includes a presentation layer [ views ] module 96 , a business logic layer [ viewmodels ] module 98 , and a data access layer [ models ] module 100 . module 100 includes a domain context module 102 and a wcf ria services client module 104 which , in the illustrative example , is communicatively coupled to communication service 1 module 90 . module 98 includes a viewmodels module 106 , a client - side business rules module 108 , a shared code ( from server ) module 110 , and a client - side data validation logic module 112 . module 106 and module 102 exchange data as indicated in fig2 a . module 96 includes an xaml module 114 and an xaml code - behind module 116 . modules 114 , 116 each exchange data with module 106 . modules 96 , 98 , 100 , 102 , 104 , 106 , 108 , 110 , 112 , 114 , 116 cooperate to access and display bed data on the display screen of computer device 20 . as indicated above , computer device 20 is used to select the communication protocol which is desired from among the various available communication protocols associated with communication service 1 through y modules 90 . referring now to fig3 , an example of a screen shot of a bed data screen 120 having bed data displayed on a display screen of one of the end user devices 20 is shown . screen 120 includes a view selector box 122 having an arrow 124 that can be selected for a drop down menu of additional types of views . in the example of fig3 , a “ bed view ” is shown which has bed data shown in table 126 . a refresh button 128 is provided on screen 120 next to box 124 . selection of button 128 results in the data of table 126 being updated with the most current data . screen 120 also has a manage settings button 130 that is selected to customize the type of data to be displayed in table 126 . it will be appreciated that any of the various types of data listed above in table 1 is selectable for inclusion in table 126 of screen 120 . in the illustrative example of fig3 , table 126 includes a bed id column 132 in which the bed type is indicated in text ( e . g ., “ totalcare ”) and in which the assigned bed identification number for the particular bed is indicated after a hyphen , an assigned location column 134 which indicates the bed &# 39 ; s location in the healthcare facility , an assigned patient column 136 which indicates the patient assigned to the particular bed , a bed connector id column 138 in which the type of system interface 14 is indicated in text ( e . g ., niu ) and in which the associated identification number for the system interface 14 is indicated after a hyphen , a connection state column 140 which includes icons 141 that indicate whether or not each bed is properly connected to server 18 via interface 14 , a bed position column 142 which indicates whether or not an upper frame of each bed 12 is in its lowest position , and a head rails position column 144 which has text indicative of the position of the siderails of the associated bed 12 . left and right scroll arrows 146 , 148 are provided to scroll on table 126 to see additional columns that are hidden from view . up and down scroll arrows 150 , 152 are provided to scroll up and down table 126 to see additional rows that are hidden from view . alternatively , a paging control box 154 is provided with numbers ( e . g ., 1 - 5 ) which are selectable to jump to additional pages of table 126 and with arrows that are selectable to go forward or back by one page or to jump to the last page or first page of table 126 . finally , screen 120 includes a history window 156 beneath table 126 which shows the date and time at which table 126 was populated with bed data . in the illustrative example of window 156 of screen 120 , it is indicated that bed data was retrieved from server 18 by the computer device 20 displaying screen 120 on mar . 7 , 2011 at 2 : 19 : 42 pm and then again on mar . 7 , 2011 at 2 : 19 : 47 pm . thus , in the illustrative example , computer device 20 is configured to receive and / or retrieve the bed data every five ( 5 ) seconds . according to this disclosure , the frequency at which each computer device is able to retrieve or receive bed data is selectable . when a user is first setting up and configuring the software of an associated computer 20 , after a successful initial login , a manage application settings screen 160 appears on the display of computer device 20 as shown , for example , in fig4 . 100571 a text block 162 is provided in a manage application settings window 164 of screen 160 . the end user types in block 162 a polling interval , in milliseconds ( ms ), at which bed data is communicated to or retrieved by the respective end user device 20 . in the illustrative example of fig4 , one thousand ( 1 , 000 ) ms has been entered in box 162 . window 164 further includes a service root uri text block 166 in which the universal resource identifier ( uri ) of server 18 with which the associated computer device 20 will interact is indicated . if server 18 comprises multiple server devices ( e . g ., the application server 1 module 58 is on one server , the database server module 52 is on another server , and the application server 2 module 26 is on yet another server , with the three servers communicatively coupled ), then the uri entered into block 166 should be the server that includes the selected communication service 1 through y module 90 . in block 166 , the text string preceding the “. svc ” is what determines which of communication service 1 through y modules 90 has been selected by the end user . in window 164 , text boxes 162 , 166 appear when a user selects a service settings menu bar 168 . window 164 also includes a version information window bar 170 and a general user settings menu bar 172 . if the user selects bar 170 , information about the software version uploaded to the user &# 39 ; s computer device 20 in modules 96 , 98 , 100 , for example , is shown . if the user selects bar 172 , the user is able to toggle history window 156 on and off via selection of check boxes or radio buttons or the like that appear in an associated drop down window . after the user finishes making the selections and entering the relevant information in boxes 162 , 166 , the user selects an ok button 174 to close window 164 . in the illustrative example of fig4 , the text “ location view ” appears in the view selector box 122 . details of the location view are discussed below in connection with fig6 and 7 . referring now to fig5 , a screen which is similar to fig3 , but which illustrates a couple additional features available on the bed data screen 120 , is shown . one additional feature allows a user to right click on the table header row 176 which results in a bed column chooser box 178 to appear on table 126 . the term “ right click ” means that a user has placed a cursor over row 176 using a computer mouse and then clicked on a mouse button that is on the right hand side of the mouse as is generally understood by those familiar with a computer mouse . by selecting the bed column chooser box 178 , a pop up window ( not shown ) appears with the list of all of the available bed column names that may be displayed in the bed view . the user then selects or deselects the various bed columns names using a check box or radio button or the like . based on the description above , it will be understood that if a user selects more columns than can be seen in table 126 at the same time , then the left and right scroll arrows 146 , 148 appear to permit a user to scroll to the unseen columns as desired . another feature of the bed data screen 120 shown in fig5 is a polling window 180 . polling window 180 appears in table 126 when a user selects a particular row of bed data on table 126 via a left mouse click , for example , or by using up and down arrow keys of a tab key to highlight a particular row of bed data then hitting the enter key of a keyboard of the respective computer device 20 . when the polling window 180 appears , the selected row is now live in the sense that it will get bed data updates in near real - time . that is , the data for the particular bed will be updated at the frequency that the data is transmitted from the respective bed 12 rather than being updated at the frequency selected using box 162 on screen 160 . by “ near real - time ” it is intended to mean in approximately real - time taking into account the data processing delays that inherently exist as server 18 and computer 20 process the bed data through the various software modules . this is a practical feature when monitoring a single bed 12 for data updates because it eliminates the need to continuously or repeatedly select the refresh button 128 . referring now to fig6 , when a user selects the location view from the drop down menu that appears near box 122 in response to icon 124 being selected , an association screen 190 appears on the display screen of the respective computer device 20 . association screen 190 includes an association table 192 which , in turn , includes an assigned location id column 194 , an assigned location name column 196 , an assigned bed connector column 198 , an assigned bed column 200 , and an assigned patient column 202 . according to this disclosure , an authorized user of computer device 20 is able to add , update , and delete data appearing in table 192 . thus , table 192 is used to create the associations between location id &# 39 ; s , location names , the id &# 39 ; s of system interfaces 14 , the id &# 39 ; s of beds 12 , and the patients assigned to beds 12 . if table 192 has more rows of information than can be seen at one time , a paging control box 199 is provided to navigate to the additional rows of information by selecting the forward or back arrows or by selecting the page number appearing in box 199 . in the illustrative example of table 192 in fig6 , the location names appearing in column 196 match the location id &# 39 ; s appearing in column 194 . however , this need not be the case such that a particular healthcare facility may have location names that are different than the location id &# 39 ; s . also , the manner in which the assigned patient is indicated in column 202 may be in any number of formats not just one the shown . thus , rather than pat - 001 for the assigned patient , a common alternative is “ sm . . . jo ” which has the first two letters of the patient &# 39 ; s last name and first two letters of the patient &# 39 ; s first name separated by ellipses . of course , some other manner of indicating an assigned patient , such as a patient &# 39 ; s full name , could be used , if desired , in column 202 . screen 190 includes an add location button 204 that is selected to add a new location to the list in table 192 . screen 190 also includes an edit icon or button 206 and a delete icon or button 208 in each row of column 194 . if delete button 208 is selected , the information appearing in the associated row of table 192 is deleted . if button 204 or button 206 is selected , then a pop - up window 210 appears on screen 190 as shown , for example , in fig7 . however , if button 204 is selected to add a location to table 192 , then the various text boxes of window 210 are blank , whereas if button 206 is selected to edit the information of a location already appearing in table 192 , then the various text boxes are filled with the current data from table 192 from the associated row of table 190 for which icon 206 was selected . window 210 includes a location id text box 212 , a location name text box 214 , a bed connector id text box 216 and a patient id text box 218 as shown in fig7 . the user of computer device 20 types into boxes 212 , 214 whatever location id and location name , respectively , the user wishes to type in those boxes . it will be appreciated that different healthcare facilities will have their own conventions for designating location id &# 39 ; s and location names . boxes 216 , 218 each have a respective menu drop down arrow 220 that can be selected to retrieve a list of the bed connector id &# 39 ; s ( e . g ., the type and serial number of the system interfaces 14 that are in communication with computer device 20 via server 18 ) and a list of patient &# 39 ; s that are available for associating with the room location . selection of one the bed connector id &# 39 ; s corresponding to one of the system interfaces 14 in window 210 will automatically cause the associated bed id to appear in column 200 of table 192 and in column 132 of table 126 since each system interface 14 is coupled to a corresponding bed 12 . window 210 has a save button 222 and a cancel button 224 as shown in fig7 . after the user of computer device 20 has filled in boxes 212 , 214 , 216 , 218 with the desired information , the user selects button 222 to save the entered information . if the user had selected add location button 204 then the saved information appears as a new row in table 198 , otherwise if the user was editing an existing row of table 198 , then the saved information appears in the edited row . alternatively , if the user does not wish to save the information entered into boxes 212 , 214 , 216 , 218 , the user selects button 224 and the user will close out of window 210 without the information in boxes 212 , 214 , 216 , 218 being added or modified on table 198 . additional details of system 10 , server 18 and the various software modules of server 18 , including those uploaded to computer devices 20 , can be found in the seven ( 7 ) appendices of u . s . provisional application no . 61 / 494 , 569 which appendices have already been incorporated by reference herein by virtue of the incorporation by reference of u . s . provisional application no . 61 / 494 , 569 . although certain embodiments have been described in detail above , variations and modifications exist within the scope and spirit of this disclosure as described and as defined in the following claims .	7
in accordance with the present invention the dispersibility of a pigment is improved by coating the pigment prior to its agglomeration . the pigment coating is achieved by a surface polymerization reaction comprising adsorbing the monomer onto the surface of the pigment and thereafter polymerizing the monomer by either the addition of a catalyst or a co - reactant to the pigment containing monomer . by initially adsorbing the monomer onto the pigment particle surfaces , fuller surface coverage is assured . ordinarily , as the molecular weight of the polymer increases , the polymer with the lengthened chain is unable to diffuse into pigment agglomerates and hence achieve satisfactory surface coverage . the present invention alleviates this by first adsorbing the monomer onto the particle surface and , then , polymerizing in situ . furthermore , since monomers are the smallest and simplest coating unit they are able to diffuse through the narrow pigment particle capillaries and adsorb onto the surface of the pigment particles . the present invention is particularly advantageous , as above - noted , in that it enables the production of pigments which are tailor - made for particular binder systems utilized in coatings and inks . hence , the present invention provides coated pigments , which are chemically compatible with the binder . the present invention , it should be noted , is applicable to all pigments , whether organic or inorganic regardless of whether it is produced in either aqueous or non - aqueous medium . however , it has been found that the present invention is particularly advantageous in coating transparent iron oxide pigments . the surface polymerization hereof is undertaken prior to drying the pigment to minimize agglomeration . optimally , the surface polymerization is conducted in the pigment soon after it is prepared . surface polymerization is carried out at elevated temperatures , generally , ranging from about 25 ° c . to about 100 ° c . and , preferably , from about 75 ° c . to about 95 ° c . as indicated hereinabove , surface polymerization is achieved by either ( a ) catalytic polymerization of the monomer or ( b ) the addition of a co - reactant to the monomer . in conducting catalytic polymerization the monomer is adsorbed onto the pigment and , then , the catalyst or initiator is added thereto . the polymerization is conducted in a slurry of pigment . herein , the degree of polymerization is dictated by the quantity of adsorbed monomer , and initiator as well as the temperature of the slurry . useful monomers include , for example , vinyl chloride , acrylonitrile , styrene , methyl methacrylate , acrylic acid and the like . useful initiators include peroxides , such as hydrogen peroxide , persulfates , such as alkali persulfate , including sodium persulfate , potassium persulfate and the like , and so forth . representative co - reactant surface polymerization systems include glycerol - phthalic anhydride ; dicarboxylic acid - amine systems , such as adipic acid - hexamethylene , diamine , adipic acid - hexanediamine , urea - formaldehyde , and the like . it is , also , possible to form an amide on the surface of the pigment by employing a monocarboxylic acid , such as stearic acid or oleic acid , with an amine . in practicing the present invention amounts in excess of stoichiometric requirements are employed to ensure polymerization . ordinarily , the slurry is heated to an elevated temperature , as described hereinabove , and , then , the monomer is added thereto . after the monomer is adsorbed onto the pigment surface , usually in about 0 . 25 to about 1 . 0 hours , the catalyst or co - reactant is added thereto . polymerization is conducted at the hereinabove noted elevated temperature for about 0 . 5 to about 3 . 0 hours . thereafter , the pigment is recovered by conventional techniques . for a more complete understanding of the present invention reference is made to the following examples . the examples are to be construed as illustrative and not limitative of the present invention . in the examples all parts are by weight absent indications to the contrary . in the following examples a transparent iron oxide pigment was employed in the form of an aqueous slurry thereof . furthermore , in all the examples , the pigment was freshly precipitated prior to surface polymerization . into a suitable reaction vessel equipped with heating means and agitation means was added a three liter aqueous slurry of freshly prepared transparent iron oxide pigment . the slurry contained approximately ten parts per liter of solids . the slurry was heated to 90 ° c . and , then , 4 . 0 parts of glycerol was added to the slurry . the slurry was stirred for fifteen minutes to ensure adsorption of the glycerol onto the pigment particles . six parts of phthalic anhydride was then added to the slurry which was then agitated for about one hour while maintaining the 90 ° c . temperature in the vessel . the treated pigment was then allowed to cool to room temperature ; was filtered ; was washed with water to remove excess salt , and , then , dried at 80 ° c . to about 100 ° c . thereafter the pigment was milled to a powder having particles of about 20 microns . the procedure of example i was repeated , but in lieu of the glycerol 4 . 0 mls of acrylic acid was added to the slurry initially . after stirring 2 . 0 mls of 30 % hydrogen peroxide was added to the slurry to initiate the acrylic acid polymerization . after the polymerization was completed the pigment was filtered , washed , dried and ground as described in example i . the procedure of example ii was repeated employing 4 . 0 mls of methyl acrylate in lieu of the acrylic acid and 1 . 0 parts of potassium persulfate in lieu of hydrogen peroxide , as the initiator . into a suitable reaction vessel equipped with heating means and agitation means was added a three liter aqueous slurry of transparent iron oxide pigment containing approximately 15 gpl . the slurry was heated to about 95 ° c . and 2 . 5 parts of adipic acid was added thereto . after stirring for about 15 minutes 2 . 0 parts of hexanediamine was added to the slurry . the slurry temperature was adjusted to 75 ° c . and was maintained thereat for about 1 hour and under agitation . the procedure of example i was repeated utilizing five parts of stearic acid in lieu of the glycerol and two parts of hexanediamine in lieu of the phthalic anhydride . the procedure of example i was repeated employing five parts of stearic acid in lieu of the glycerol and 2 mls of 41 % monomethyl amine solution . into a suitable reaction vessel equipped with heating means and stirring means was added about 750 liters of a 15 gpl aqueous slurry of transparent iron oxide pigment . the slurry was heated to 90 ° c . and 1452 parts of glycerol was added thereto . the slurry was then agitated for about 0 . 5 hours . next , 2180 parts of phthalic anhydride was added to the slurry . the slurry was agitated for about 1 . 0 hours while maintaining the temperature at 90 ° c . to ensure complete polymerization . thereafter , the slurry was cooled and the pigment was filtered in a filter press , washed , dried at 70 ° c ., and milled in the manner described in example i . a 5 % pigment - binder - solvent mixture was ground with 100 parts of glass beads on a red devil paint shaker . thereafter drawdowns on aluminum foil were drawn with a 60 micron film applicator . the drawdowns were prepared from the pigments of examples i - vi a control for each pigment was simultaneously drawn down and compared to the treated pigments hereof . the pigments of examples i and vi were tested in a polyester binder system . the pigments of examples ii and vii were tested against their controls in a thermoset acrylic . the pigments of examples iv and v were tested against their controls in a polyamide system . thereafter , each drawdown and its control were tested in a thermoset acrylic system . in each instance the surface treated pigment was superior to its control with respect to dispersibility . specifically , it has been observed that transparent iron oxide pigments coated with a glycerol - phthalic anhydride polymer exhibit excellent dispersibility in a polyester binder system . in such a system the so - coated pigments reflect light specularly rather diffusely . likewise coated transparent iron pigments form superior inks in polyamide ink systems when coated with an adipic acid - hexanediamine polymer .	2
the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to a few preferred embodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings . in the following description , numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention . it will be apparent , however , to one skilled in the art , that the present invention may be practiced without some or all of these specific details . in other instances , well known operations have not been described in detail so not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention . referring now to fig1 through fig5 an embodiment of a drizzle device 100 is comprised of a handle portion 200 and a receptacle portion 300 . the handle portion is comprised of a grip 205 that extends and connects to a flexing section 210 . the flexing section 210 connects to a handle - receptacle connector section 220 . the receptacle portion 300 is comprised of a receptacle exterior that is cone - shaped with a receptacle exterior 310 and a receptacle cavity 320 . in one embodiment the receptacle exterior 310 is substantially smooth . in another embodiment the receptacle exterior has an array of concentric grooves . in another embodiment the receptacle exterior has an array of concentric protrusions . the receptacle cavity 320 may be smooth or similarly disposed . the handle - receptacle connector section 220 is affixed within the receptacle cavity 320 at the cone “ point ”. in one embodiment the drizzle device 100 may be further comprised of an eyelet portion 400 that is connected to the distal end of handle portion 200 via handle - eyelet connector 230 . in one embodiment the flexing section 210 is comprised of an alternating array of flexing protrusion 211 and flexing depression 212 . the flexing section 210 may be comprised of other structures to allow bending or pivoting . in one embodiment of the present invention , the handle portion 200 is hollowed out over a certain length of the handle and a shaft 400 can be inserted into the follow portion of the handle 200 . the shaft 400 can be retracted from the handle 200 and used to stir , scrape or otherwise assist in the removal of content from the receptacle 300 . the shaft 400 may include a grip , such as an eyelet or other shape on one end to help facilitate placement and extraction of the shaft 400 from the handle 200 . in other embodiments of the invention , the receptacle 300 may be constructed of different shapes , such as a cylinder , a square , thimble shaped , bowl shaped , etc . and the present invention is not limited to any particular shape , although some particular shapes may be considered as novel . one method to instruct another to manufacture the invention is as follows : cut a cavity into a piece of metal suitable for compression , injection or other molding process in a shape necessary to yield a shaft , handle , or linear area and an attached receptacle place inside the mold a rigid insert position in the mold in such a way that insert will be over molded and be captured by the material that forms the shaft , handle or linear area and attached receptacle close the mold insert a suitable material used in the molding process into the mold another way to instruct someone to manufacture the invention is as follows : attach a shaft , handle or linear area of wood , metal , plastic , silicone or other suitable material to a receptacle made of a wood , metal , plastic , silicone or other suitable material connect the two parts by means that will allow one to flex or pivot in relation to the other still another way to instruct someone to manufacture the present invention is to cut a cavity into a piece of metal suitable for compression , injection or other molding process in a shape necessary to yield a shaft , handle , or linear area and an attached receptacle with perforations on the outer containment surfaces . these would be created in the mold by a series of pins covering a percentage of the receptacle surface area . another way to create these hold would be to punch the holes in the surface of the receptacle post molding . placed inside the mold is a rigid insert position in the mold in such a way that insert will be over molded and be captured by the material that forms the shaft , handle or linear area and attached receptacle . then close the mold and insert the suitable material used in the molding process into the mold be suitable insertion method . alternatively , another way to instruct someone to manufacture the invention is to attach a shaft , handle or linear area of wood , metal , plastic , silicone or other suitable material to a receptacle made of a wood , metal , plastic , silicone or other suitable material with perforations in the surface of the receptacle . then , connect the two parts by some means that will allow one to flex or pivot in relation to the other . yet , another embodiment can be made by the presences of a shaft , handle , or linear area with an attached receptacle whose opening is positioned parallel and in line with said shaft , handle , or linear area . the opening at the receptacle of this embodiment could also be described as being positioned 90 degrees to the previously described design present throughout this patent application . from the foregoing , it will be appreciated that , although specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration , various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention . for example , many of the features and components described above in the context of a particular drizzle device configuration can be incorporated into other configurations in accordance with other embodiments of the invention .	0
fig1 shows a superconducting switch 10 of the present invention . the switch 10 is particularly adapted for use in a charging circuit of a high energy superconducting magnet which produces a field of about 0 . 5 tesla ( t ). further explanation of how the switch 10 could be incorporated in a charging circuit for a superconducting magnet is available in u . s . pat . no . 4 , 586 , 017 , the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference . the switch 10 includes a solid glass - epoxy composite core 12 , inner nylon end plates 13 and 14 , outer aluminum end plates 15 and 16 , a nylon sleeve 17 , an aluminum housing 18 and windings generally designated 20 around the core including layers of wound cupro - nickel matrix superconductors 22 . a stud 23 helps hold the assembly together and the entire assembly is vacuum impregnated with an epoxy 24 . when the epoxy cures , a solid epoxy body fills the voids in the switch and fixes the windings against movement within the switch when the wires are placed in a magnetic field . otherwise , even a slight movement of the wires could initiate a quench because cupro - nickel matrix superconductors are extremely unstable in a magnetic field , particularly at high current densities . referring to fig3 the windings 20 are made of layers of the superconducting wire 22 , epoxy compatible glass felt 25 , and formvar coated copper sheets 27 . a sheet 26 having a pair of axially side - by - side nickel - chromium alloy foil heaters embedded in it is wrapped around the core 12 radially inward from the windings 20 with a layer of glass felt 25 approximately 0 . 003 &# 34 ; thick between the sheet 26 and the core 12 . in this embodiment , the resistance of each heater is nominally 5 . 3 ohms . two heaters are preferred so that if one of the heaters malfunctions , the other can be relied upon . another layer of epoxy - compatible glass felt 25 approximately 0 . 006 - 0 . 009 inches thick is wound over the sheet 26 for support and electrical insulation and a copper sheet 27 is laid over the glass felt layer . the sheet 27 spreads the heat from the sheet 26 , see u . s . pat . no . 4 , 586 , 017 referred to above . the sheet 26 may also be provided with a similar thermally conducting sheet integral with it , in which case the copper sheet 27 is not necessary . if the sheet 27 is used , it is followed by another layer of epoxy - compatible glass of about 0 . 009 &# 34 ; before beginning winding the superconducting wires . each wire is bifilarly wound around the core so as not to produce any appreciable magnetic field ( which may interfere with a main magnetic field ). each wire is bifilarly wound by starting the winding at the core in the middle of the wire . referring to fig4 and 5 , the middle of one of the wires , designated 1 , is looped into a recess 30 in the end of the core 12 . on one side of the middle , this wire is designated &# 34 ; i &# 34 ; for input and the other side is designated &# 34 ; o &# 34 ; for output . thus , current through the wire 1 travels in one direction through portion 1i and in the other direction through portion 1o . the wire 1 is wound about halfway ( 180 °) around the core in the direction indicated in fig4 and the other wire , designated 2 , is started in the same way and direction by looping its middle around the recess 31 in the end of the core , with its ends on either side of the middle also being similarly designated &# 34 ; i &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; o &# 34 ;. the recess 31 is at least two wire diameters deep so that end 2o can cross under end 1i and come out between ends 1i and 1o , as illustrated in fig4 . thus , the &# 34 ; i &# 34 ; ends of the wires 1 and 2 are adjacent and the &# 34 ; o &# 34 ; ends of the wires 1 and 2 are also adjacent . as such , the wires alternate within each layer . as shown in fig4 the starting side - by - side relationship of the wires is 1 - 2 - 1 - 2 ( from the left ), and more particularly , 1o - 2o - 1i2i . the cross - under of end 2o under end 1i is packed with fiberglass to avoid any regions of unsupported epoxy in the final switch greater than 0 . 010 inches thick . with four conductors in hand , arranged as described above , three layers of the wires 1 and 2 are wound on the core 12 . as the wires are wound , a tension of about 10 lbs . is applied to each wire . when the end of a layer is reached , a layer of epoxy - compatible glass felt 25 nominally 0 . 009 inches thick is wrapped over the layer . then , another copper sheet 27 is wrapped over the glass felt , followed by another layer of glass felt nominally 0 . 009 inches thick . the next layer of superconducting wire is then started over the last layer of glass felt . the wire of this layer is wound in the same rotary direction , and with the wire in the same order as , the last layer . thus , if the order at the end of the first layer as shown in fig3 is 1o - 2o - 1i - 2i , ( from the left ; the same as at the beginning of this layer as shown in fig4 ), the order will also be 1o - 2o - 1i - 2i , as shown in the second layer , and this will be the case for all of the layers . thus , in cross section , when the wires are viewed in groups of &# 34 ; o &# 39 ; s &# 34 ; and &# 34 ; i &# 39 ; s &# 34 ;, the groups alternate within each layer and from layer to layer are axially offset from one another by one - half of a wire diameter . the areas at the ends / beginnings of the layers where the wires go from one layer to another are packed with fiberglass so as to avoid any unsupported thicknesses of epoxy greater than 0 . 010 inches . this procedure is repeated for each of the layers until the third layer of superconducting wire has been wound . outside of the third layer of superconducting wire , epoxy - compatible glass felt is wound to an outside diameter which will allow the nylon sleeve 17 to be slid over the glass felt without rumpling it , but will not allow regions of epoxy without support more than 0 . 010 inches thick upon impregnation . the superconducting wires 1 and 2 are extracted from the switch at the end opposite from the end of the core 12 having the recesses 30 and 31 . the ends 1i and 2i form superconducting lead 34i an the ends 1o and 2o form superconducting lead 34o , for connection to a superconducting circuit . adjacent wires 1o and 2o ( fig8 ) are bent at 90 degrees and exit the switch through recesses 42 and 43 in the end plates 13 and 15 , respectively . the ends 1i and 2i continue around the core for approximately another half revolution and are brought out through the recesses 45 and 46 in the end plates 13 and 15 , respectively , as shown in fig9 . the core ( fig6 ) also has recesses 47 and 48 to allow routing heater leads 49 ( four total , two from each heater element ) through passageways 50 and 51 ( fig7 ) defined by the end plates 13 and 15 , respectively . a suitable piece of electrically insulating tubing 52 encloses the heater leads out through the passageway 51 . the superconducting wire inside the switch is stabilized by fixing the wires 1 and 2 against movement . however , the superconducting leads 34i and 34o cannot be so fixed because they must be movable to be connected with a superconducting joint to a circuit , such as the charging circuit for the main magnet coils of an mr scanner . to stabilize the leads 34o and 34i outside of the switch , each lead is in electrical contact along its length by means of solder 55 with a channel 54o or 54i made of ofhc ( oxygen free high conductivity ) copper . the channels 54o and 54i should be deep enough so the leads 34o and 34i can be covered with solder 55 within them . the construction for lead 34o is shown in fig1 . each channel 54o or 54i extends into the switch and has its inside end embedded in the epoxy which impregnates the switch as shown in fig8 and 9 . each channel 54o or 54i and the corresponding leads 34o or 34i extend for a distance suitable to make a joint at the end thereof with leads 57 and 58 , respectively , from the circuit in which the switch is to be incorporated and these leads should be firmly secured for their entire length , such as by clamping them to a stationary structure without allowing unsupported lengths of more than about 1 - 2 inches . in the preferred embodiment , this distance is approximately four feet . also , more than one channel may be overlapped for additional strength and soldered together , as indicated by the lines 56 in fig1 . further support is provided for the leads 34i and 34o where they exit the switch and adjacent thereto by tubular ofhc copper braid 53 . the braid 53 surrounds and is soldered to each channel 54o and 54i , with the solder substantially filling any voids between the braid and the corresponding channel and lead pair . the braid 53 extends into the switch and is embedded in the epoxy which impregnates the switch , and extends outside of the switch and through the support 71 to support the leads adjacent to the switch . preferably , the braid should extend for substantially the entire length of the leads 34i and 34o for additional strength and stability . electrically insulating teflon tubing pieces 52 surround the braid 53 out through the end plate 15 . in addition , sealant compound 62 is applied around the tubing 52 and heater leads 49 where they exit the end plate 15 . fig9 shows a superconducting joint 59 at the free end of the lead 34i and channel 54i . as shown , the copper channel 54i also extends into the joint 59 , and the lead 34i extends somewhat past the end of the channel 54i . the braid 53 could also , if desired , extend into the joint 59 . this joint made between the superconductors 1i and 2i and the superconductor 57 , which typically has a copper matrix , is made according to the method fully described in commonly owned u . s . patent application ser . no . 07 / 157 , 345 , entitled method and apparatus for making a superconducting joint , filed concurrently herewith , which is hereby incorporated by reference . briefly , the joint 59 is made by etching the matrix material away from the superconductors 57 and 34i in a bath of molten tin , thereby exposing filaments 68 , and then molding the filaments together in a superconductive solder material 72 , such as lead - bismuth . as shown in fig1 a similar joint 59 is made between the channel 54o , the leads 1o , 2o and a lead 58 from the circuit with which the connection is to be made . to complete the construction of the switch 10 , the outer housing 18 , which is made of aluminum or other material of a high coefficient of thermal expansion , is slid over the nylon sleeve 17 and a pin 60 ( fig2 ) is press fitted through the housing 18 , nylon sleeve 17 and into the end plate 15 to prevent relative rotation therebetween . another pin 63 ( fig1 and 10 ) is also held in the end of a support bracket 61 for stationary mounting of the switch 10 , and the pin is press fitted into the end plates 15 and 13 and into the core 12 . thus , rotation between the core 12 , end plate 13 , end plate 15 , sleeve 17 , housing 18 and support 61 is prevented . the threaded stud 23 extends through the entire assembly and nuts 65 and 66 bear against washers against the end plates 15 and 16 to hold the assembly axially together . the stud 23 extends slightly beyond the nut 65 and is threaded into a suitable mounting bracket 67 which can also be fixedly mounted . the stud 23 also extends past nut 66 through the support bracket 61 and a nut 69 sandwiches a washer 70 and the mounting bracket 61 against the nut 66 . the stud next extends through a brace 71 which is mounted on the end of the stud 23 with a nut 72 and washer 73 . the brace 71 is made of an electrically insulating material and has apertures formed in it through which the lead assemblies ( comprising the braid 53 - channels 54i , 54o - leads 34i , 34o , respectively ) extend . set screws 75 bear against end plates 76 to secure the lead assemblies in place . the superconducting wire 1 and 2 is a cupro - nickel matrix niobium - titanium multifilamentary ( 576 filaments ) superconducting composite conductor . preferably , the superconducting material of the filaments is 46 . 5 plus or minus 1 . 5 weight percent titanium . the matrix material is 70 % copper , 30 % nickel with a nominal resistivity of 3 . 2 × 10 - 5 ohm - cm at room temperature . the outer jacket of the wire is 90 % copper , 10 % nickel with a nominal resistivity of 1 . 5 × 10 - 5 ohm - cm at room temperature . the volume ratio of cupro - nickel to niobium - titanium is nominally 1 . 10 : 1 in the final conductor . each wire is also fully cured formvar varnish coated for insulation . the diameter of each wire prior to insulation is preferably 0 . 041 inches nominally and its length is about 39 feet inside the switch ( not counting the leads ). the insulated wire diameter is nominally 0 . 044 inches . the equivalent average filament size in the final conductor is preferably 29 microns in diameter nominally and should not be greater than about 32 microns . the twist pitch length of the wire should be 1 . 0 plus or minus 0 . 25 inches . as such , the minimum critical current of this wire should be 630 amps in a magnetic field of 5 tesla at 4 . 2 degrees kelvin . in addition , the resistance of the switch 10 when &# 34 ; off &# 34 ; is about 2 . 2 ohms . a switch constructed as described was tested in a sample test dewar for maximum current carrying capacity in different magnetic fields from 0t to 5t . the power supply used had a maximum current of 1520 amps . the following table shows the maximum currents reached by this switch during these tests . ______________________________________field ( tesla ) current ( amps ) ______________________________________0 . 0 1520 ( held 2 min , no quench ) 0 . 3 1520 ( held 2 min , no quench ) 0 . 5 1520 ( held 2 min , no quench ) 1 . 0 1520 ( held 2 min , no quench ) 2 . 0 13603 . 0 14654 . 0 11955 . 0 1090______________________________________ other switches were also constructed using this same basic construction and tested for maximum current carrying capacity in fields from 0t to 5t . one such switch was made using two wires , as described above , but each wire &# 39 ; s length within the switch was 195 feet , the switch being wound in five layers and made longer . another switch was wound with three wires , each wire being 130 feet long inside the switch and wound in five layers , with the housing length adjusted accordingly . the lead construction was substantially the same for all these switches as that described . the power supply used in these tests also had a maximum current of 1520 amps . the maximum currents reached by these switches during these tests are as follows : ______________________________________field ( tesla ) 2 wire 3 wire______________________________________0 . 0 1520 ( held 2 min ., 1518 no quench ) 0 . 3 1520 ( held 2 min ., not available no quench ) 0 . 5 1520 ( held 2 min ., 1518 ( held 2 min ., no quench ) no quench ) 1 . 0 1220 15182 . 0 770 9553 . 0 605 8254 . 0 510 6605 . 0 455 585______________________________________ thus , it is apparent that the invention provides a high current capacity switch using cupro - nickel matrix superconductor . moreover , a switch constructed according to the invention , such as that first described above for the charging circuit of a 0 . 5t mr magnet coil , can hold the magnetic field drift of the magnet to less than 0 . 1 ppm / hour . many modifications and variations of the preferred embodiment will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art but will still be within the spirit and scope of the invention . therefore , the invention should not be limited by the scope of the preferred embodiment , but only by the claims which follow .	7
referring in more detail to the drawings , fig1 illustrates a tank system 10 that includes an additive tank 100 , a module 200 for pumping the additive , a heating device 300 , and electrical connecting lines 400 for supplying the heating device 300 . the tank 100 can be made from a great number of technologies . preferentially the tank 100 is made from two injection molded half shells , an upper one 102 and a lower one 104 , welded or otherwise connected together on their adjacent parts or seam 106 . the tank 100 , after welding of the two shells 102 and 104 , may be considered to have an upper wall 110 , a lower wall 112 and a side wall 114 connecting the upper wall 110 and the lower wall 112 . in use the upper and the lower walls 110 and 112 are horizontal while the side wall 114 is vertical . the upper wall 110 may be provided with a filling interface through which liquid is added to the tank 100 , and which may include a screw cap 120 , a vent 130 and a flange 140 which supports the module 200 for pumping the additive . the filling interface 120 and vent 130 may be of conventional construction and will not be described in detail . the module 200 for pumping the additive may include a pump 210 located inside the tank 100 and may include the flange 140 that supports the module . the pump 210 for pumping the additive may include any kind of pump compatible with urea . for example , the pump 210 may be formed by an electrically driven rotating pump or a solenoid dosing pump . such a solenoid dosing pump comprises generally a piston which is moved by a magnetic force issued by the solenoid so as to alternatively draw additive into a pumping chamber and expel the additive outside said pumping chamber . the flange 140 is provided both with one or more electrical connector ( s ) 142 for electrically supplying the pump 210 and one or more hydraulic connection ( s ) 144 in connection with the output of the pump . more precisely the pump 210 may be located inside a reserve pot 160 that may be formed integral with and in the lower wall 112 of the tank . thus the pump 210 is vertically integrated in the tank in this implementation , although other orientations may be utilized . the coil or solenoid of the pump 210 ( when a solenoid pump is used ) may be used as an additional heating device for cavitation prevention . the flange 140 may also integrate an electronic dosing module suitable for controlling the operation of the solenoid dosing pump 210 . according to the specific embodiment illustrated on the enclosed figures , the pot 160 is made by a generally cylindrical wall 161 so that the horizontal cross section of the pot 160 is about circular . the inside volume of the pot 160 is in communication with the volume of the tank 100 outside the pot 160 by any controlling means suitable for allowing free filling up of the pot 160 from the tank ( i . e . free transfer of additive from the tank 100 towards inside the pot 160 ), while limiting draining of the pot 160 ( i . e . limiting transfer of additive form inside the pot 160 towards the tank 100 ). for example such controlling means may be a cylindrical labyrinth 162 integral with the wall 161 and in connection on a one side with the inside volume of the pot 160 and in connection on the other side with the volume of the tank outside said pot 160 . the first embodiment illustrated on fig3 to 6 will be first described . this embodiment is intended to be representative of at least certain concepts but is not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure . as indicated above , the heating device 300 may include at least a heating module 310 provided in a blind pocket 170 carried by or integral with ( i . e . integrally formed in ) the lower wall 112 of the tank 100 . in this implementations , the pocket 170 projects inside the internal volume of the tank 100 from the lower wall of the tank as illustrated on fig3 and opens outside the tank on the bottom side of the tank . the heating device 300 may be placed inside blind pockets which do not open inside the tank 300 , so that the heating device is fully isolated from urea and consequently there is no risk of corrosion of the heating device 300 by the urea and no specific anti - corrosion sheathing is needed . instead of being formed in the lower wall , the blind pocket may be provided in another structure sealed to or otherwise carried by the lower wall , for example , on a flange that supports the pump and is coupled to the bottom wall of the tank , as opposed to ( or in addition to ) the upper wall . in addition , the pocket may project toward or near the bottom wall of the tank from , for example , the upper wall 110 or side wall 114 of the tank . the heating device 300 , in at least certain implementations , may include a plurality of heating modules 310 , 320 , 330 and 340 dispatched on the lower wall 112 of the tank so as to generally cover the wall 161 of the pot 160 . according to the specific embodiment illustrated on the enclosed figures , the heating device 300 comprises a plurality of heating modules ( 310 , 320 , 330 ) regularly angularly dispatched around the lateral wall 161 of the pot 160 and one or more additional heating modules 340 provided on the outside surface of the bottom wall of the pot 160 . more precisely according to the specific embodiment illustrated on the enclosed fig3 to 6 , the heating device 300 comprises 3 heating modules 310 , 320 , 330 angularly dispatched around the wall 161 of the pot 160 and an additional heating module 340 provided on the outside surface of the bottom wall of the pot 160 . the heating modules 310 , 320 and 330 are provided in respective blind pockets 170 , 172 , 174 that may be integral with the wall 161 of the pot 160 ( see fig3 ). said pockets 170 , 172 , 174 project inside the tank 100 from the bottom wall 112 . each pocket defines a generally parallelepiped internal chamber receiving a heating module 310 , 320 or 330 . in one form , the heating modules 310 , 320 , 330 and 340 comprise positive temperature coefficient ( ptc ) heaters 314 , 324 , 334 and 344 . ptc heating means are well - known . ptc heating elements may be made from ceramic , such as ceramic based on barium titanate . when a voltage is placed across a ptc , current will flow and begin to heat the ptc . initially , the resistance drops , allowing more current to flow and thus begins to heat more quickly . ptc heaters are effective low cost solutions providing highly efficient source of heat in a very small enclosure . fig7 illustrates one representative heating arrangement which shows the temperature of a mid height of the pot , the pot bottom and an area outside the pot , over time . the chart shows , among other things , that the pot bottom heats very quickly to facilitate melting urea near the bottom of the tank and the inlet of the pump 210 . as illustrated on the enclosed fig2 to 6 the ptc heaters 314 , 324 , 334 and 344 may each be provided between two metal electrodes 312 , 316 ; 322 , 326 ; 332 , 336 ; 342 , 346 , such as aluminum or copper electrodes . one of said electrodes 312 , 322 ; 332 is directly in contact with the outside surface of the wall 161 of the pot 160 . the electrode 342 is in contact with the outside surface of the bottom wall of the pot 160 . a resilient spring 318 , 328 , 338 , is provided between the other electrode 316 , 326 336 and the internal surface of the receiving pocket so as to exert a pressure upon the stacks of electrodes and ptc heaters . the electrodes 312 , 316 ; 322 , 326 ; 332 , 336 may generally have a parallelepiped shape . the electrodes 342 , 346 are generally circular although other shapes may be used . as illustrated on the enclosed figures , electrodes 312 , 316 ; 322 , 326 ; 332 , 336 ; 342 , 346 have a cross section larger than the ptc heaters 314 , 324 , 334 and 344 . a cover may be fixed on a circular rib 113 that may be formed integral with the lower surface of the lower wall 112 , after electrical connection of the heating modules 300 so as to protect the heating device 300 . such a cover is not illustrated on the enclosed figures . a spring similar to the springs 318 , 328 , 338 may be inserted between the ptc heater 344 and the cover . moreover , as indicated above , the electrical connecting lines 400 for electrical supplying of the heating device 300 are , in at least some implementations , fully provided on the outside of the tank 100 so that they are not exposed to the urea within the tank . such connecting lines 400 extend from a connector 142 provided on the flange 140 and each one of the ptc modules 310 , 320 , 330 and 340 . said connecting lines 400 being placed outside the tank 300 , they are fully isolated from urea and consequently there is no risk of corrosion of said connecting lines 400 by the urea , without needing any specific anti - corrosion sheathing . the second embodiment illustrated in fig8 to 11 will be now described . according to the second embodiment illustrated on fig8 to 11 , the heater device 300 is provided in a bottom chamber 150 formed on or near the external surface of the lower wall 112 , as well as in a plurality of blind pockets 170 in communication with said chamber 150 , and provided around the wall 161 of the pot 160 . the chamber 150 is preferentially inside a circular rib 113 integral with the lower surface of the lower wall 112 and a cover 190 . an annular seal 194 is provided between a collar 192 of the cover 190 and the lower wall 112 of the tank 100 . the heater device 300 in this implementation comprises a plurality of ptc heaters 354 , such as 3 ptc heaters 354 , provided inside the chamber 150 between a bottom contact plate 356 and an heater plate 352 . the heater plate 352 is adjacent the lower wall 112 . in at least some forms , the heater plate 352 has a circular shape and is made from aluminum or copper or other suitably thermally conductive material . the contact plate 356 is adjacent the cover 190 . the contact plate 356 may be a ring including stamped parts 357 forming an elastic or biasing mechanism ( s ) which urges the ptc heaters 354 and the heater plate 352 against the lower surface of the lower wall 112 so as to optimize the heat transfer from the heater plate 352 to the lower wall 112 . contact plate 356 and parallel heater plate 352 are electrodes for electrical supplying of the ptc heaters 354 from the connecting lines 400 . moreover the heater device illustrated in fig8 to 11 includes heat sinks 360 linked with the heater plate 352 and inserted in the pockets 170 provided around the wall 161 of the pot 160 . the heat sinks 360 may be made from parallelepiped blocks connected by any means , such as screwing or welding , to the heater plate 352 . the heat sinks 360 extend vertically and transversely to the horizontal heater plate 352 . the heat sinks 360 are provided in the pockets around the wall 161 of the pot 160 so as to cover as far as possible a majority of the surface of the wall 161 . the heat sinks 360 may be urged against the outside surface of the wall 161 of the pot 160 by respective resilient springs 362 inserted in the pockets 170 . according to a specific and not limiting embodiment , the heater device comprises 6 pockets 170 regularly spaced around the wall 161 of the pot 160 and 6 heat sinks 360 with 6 springs 362 inserted respectively in each of said pockets 170 . according to the embodiment illustrated on fig8 to 11 , preferentially each ptc heater 354 is provided in a cradle 370 linked to two respective spacers 372 , 374 . the spacers 372 , 374 define the distance between the contact plate 356 and the heater plate 352 . the cradle 370 is suitable to authorize a displacement of the ptc heaters 354 transversely to the contact plate 356 so as to warrant contact between said ptc heaters 354 and the heater plate 352 . the spacers 372 , 374 are preferentially made from thermoplastic material so as to form an electric insulation between the contact plate 356 and the heater plate 352 . preferentially the contact plate 356 is an open ring so as to clear a zone wherein is implemented a level sensor 145 and a temperature sensor 146 . the system provides an additive tank wherein no metallic part of the heating devices , neither the heating elements themselves nor the electrical wires for the heating elements , is inside the tank . this provides a high level of robustness and low risk of failure which may otherwise occur due to corrosion . the system may be cost effective , such as by using aluminum simple shapes instead of either stainless steel parts or overmolded aluminum heater . further , with the heating device components not located within the tank , assembly of the heating devices is simplified . very good thermal conduction to the tank may be easily achieved with aluminum or other materials of suitable thermal conductivity . further , the heather may be self thermally regulated by use of , for example , ptc heating elements . with the components outside of the tank and not corroding within the tank , there is no risk of altering the urea quality . optimization of the blind pockets using an injection molded tank enables automatic optimized shapes for the insertion of heater components , without needing any kind of additional machining while the forms of the invention herein disclosed constitute presently preferred embodiments , many others are possible . it is not intended herein to mention all the possible equivalent forms or ramifications of the invention . it is understood that the terms used herein are merely descriptive , rather than limiting , and that various changes may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention .	8
the following description is merely exemplary in nature and is not intended to limit the present disclosure , application , or uses . referring now to the drawings in which like reference numerals designate like or corresponding parts throughout the several views , there is shown . in fig1 a scroll compressor that incorporates a retention system for a discharge valving system in accordance with the present disclosure and which is designated generally by reference numeral 10 . compressor 10 comprises a generally cylindrical hermetic shell 12 having welded at the upper end thereof a cap 14 and at the lower end thereof a base 16 having a plurality of mounting feet ( not shown ) integrally formed therewith . cap 14 is provided with a refrigerant discharge fitting 18 . other major elements affixed to the shell include a transversely extending partition 22 that is welded about its periphery at the same point that cap 14 is welded to shell 12 , a lower bearing housing 24 that is suitably secured to shell 12 and a two piece upper bearing housing 26 suitably secured to lower bearing housing 24 . a drive shaft or crankshaft 28 having an eccentric crank pin 30 at the upper end thereof is rotatably journaled in a bearing 32 in lower bearing housing 24 and a second bearing 34 in upper bearing housing 26 . crankshaft 28 has at the lower end a relatively large diameter concentric bore 36 that communicates with a radially outwardly inclined smaller diameter bore 38 extending upwardly therefrom to the top of crankshaft 28 . the lower portion of the interior shell 12 defines an oil sump 40 that is filled with lubricating oil to a level slightly above the lower end of a rotor 42 , and bore 36 acts as a pump to pump lubricating fluid up crankshaft 28 and into bore 38 and ultimately to all of the various portions of the compressor that require lubrication . crankshaft 28 is rotatively driven by an electric motor including a stator 46 , windings 48 passing therethrough and rotor 42 press fitted on crankshaft 28 and having upper and lower counterweights 50 and 52 , respectively . the upper surface of upper bearing housing 26 is provided with a flat thrust bearing surface 54 on which is disposed an orbiting scroll member 56 having the usual spiral vane or wrap 58 extending upward from an end plate 60 . projecting downwardly from the lower surface of end plate 60 of orbiting scroll member 56 is a cylindrical hub having a journal bearing 62 therein and in which is rotatively disposed a drive bushing 64 having an inner bore 66 in which crank pin 30 is drivingly disposed . crank pin 30 has a flat on one surface that drivingly engages a flat surface ( not shown ) formed in a portion of bore 66 to provide a radially compliant driving arrangement , such as shown in assignee &# 39 ; s u . s . pat . no . 4 , 877 , 382 , the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated reference . an oldham coupling 68 is also provided positioned between orbiting scroll member 56 and bearing housing 24 and keyed to orbiting scroll member 56 and a non - orbiting scroll member 70 to prevent rotational movement of orbiting scroll member 56 . oldham coupling 68 may be of the type disclosed in assignee &# 39 ; s co - pending u . s . pat . no . 5 , 320 , 506 , the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference . non - orbiting scroll member 70 is also provided having a wrap 72 extending downwardly from an end plate 74 that is positioned in meshing engagement with wrap 58 of orbiting scroll member 56 . non - orbiting scroll member 70 has a centrally disposed discharge passage 76 that communicates with an upwardly open recess 78 which , in turn , is in fluid communication with a discharge muffler chamber 80 defined by cap 14 and partition 22 . an annular recess 82 is also formed in non - orbiting scroll member 70 within which is disposed a floating seal assembly 84 . recesses 78 and 82 and seal assembly 84 cooperate to define axial pressure biasing chambers , which receive pressurized fluid being compressed by wraps 58 and 72 so as to exert an axial biasing force on non - orbiting scroll member 70 to thereby urge the tips of respective wraps 58 , 72 into sealing engagement with the opposed end plate surfaces of end plates 74 and 60 , respectively . seal assembly 84 may be of the type described in greater detail in u . s . pat . no . 5 , 156 , 539 , the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference . non - orbiting scroll member 70 is designed to be mounted to upper bearing housing 26 in a suitable manner such as disclosed in the aforementioned u . s . pat . no . 4 , 877 , 382 or u . s . pat . no . 5 , 102 , 316 , the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference . referring now to fig2 and 3 , floating seal assembly 84 is of a coaxial sandwiched construction and comprises an annular base plate 102 having a plurality of equally spaced upstanding integral projections 104 each having an enlarged base portion 106 . disposed on plate 102 is an annular gasket assembly 108 having a plurality of equally spaced holes that mate with and receive base portions 106 . on top of gasket assembly 108 is disposed an annular spacer plate 110 having a plurality of equally spaces holes that also mate with and receive base portions 106 . on top of plate 110 is an annular gasket assembly 112 having a plurality of equally spaced holes that mate with and receive projections 104 . the assembly of seal assembly 84 is maintained by an annular upper seal plate 114 , which has a plurality of equally spaced holes mating with and receiving projections 104 . seal plate 114 includes a plurality of annular projections 116 , which mate with and extend into the plurality of holes in annular gasket assembly 112 and spacer plate 110 to provide stability to seal assembly 84 . seal plate 114 also includes an annular upwardly projecting planar sealing lip 118 . seal assembly 84 is secured together by swaging the ends of projections 104 as indicated at 120 . referring now to fig3 , seal assembly 84 therefore provides three distinct seals : first , an inside diameter seal at two interfaces 122 ; second , an outside diameter seal at two interfaces 124 ; and , third , a top seal at 126 . seals 122 isolate fluid under intermediate pressure in the bottom of recess 82 from fluid under discharge pressure in recess 78 . seals 124 isolate fluid under intermediate pressure in the bottom of recess 82 from fluid under suction pressure within shell 12 . seal 126 is between sealing lip 118 and an annular seat portion on partition 22 . seal 126 isolates fluid at suction pressure from fluid at discharge pressure across the top of seal assembly 84 . the diameter and width of seal 126 are chosen so that the unit pressure between sealing lip 118 and the seat portion on partition 22 is greater than normally encountered discharge pressure , thus ensuring consistent sealing under normal operating conditions of compressor 10 , i . e ., at normal operating pressure ratios . therefore , when undesirable pressure conditions are encountered , seal assembly 84 will be forced downward breaking seal 126 , thereby permitting fluid flow from the discharge pressure zone of compressor 10 to the suction pressure zone of compressor 10 . if this flow is great enough , the resultant loss of flow of motor - cooling suction gas ( aggravated by the excessive temperature of the leaking discharge gas ) will cause a motor protector to trip thereby the de - energizing motor . the width of seal 126 is chose so that the unit pressure between sealing lip 118 and the seat portion of partition 22 is greater than normally encountered discharge pressure , thus ensuring consistent sealing . the scroll compressor as thus far broadly described is either now known in the art or is the subject of other pending applications for patent or patents of applicant &# 39 ; s assignee . the present disclosure is directed towards a retention system for a normally open mechanical valve assembly 130 , which is disposed within recess 78 , which is formed in non - orbiting scroll member 70 . while the present disclosure is being described in conjunction with normally open mechanical valve assembly 130 , the retention system of the present disclosure can be used with any other type of discharge valve also . valve assembly 130 moves between a first or closed condition , a second or open condition , and a third or fully open condition during steady state operation of compressor 10 . valve assembly 130 will close during the shut down of compressor 10 . when valve assembly 130 is fully closed , the recompression volume is minimized and the reverse flow of discharge gas through scroll members 56 and 70 is prohibited . valve assembly 130 is normally open as shown in fig3 and 4 a . the normally open configuration for valve assembly 130 eliminates the force required to open valve assembly 130 as well as eliminating any mechanical device needed to close valve assembly 130 . valve assembly 130 relies on gas pressure differential for closing . referring now to fig3 - 5 , discharge valve assembly 130 is disposed within recess 78 and it comprises a valve seat 132 , a valve plate 134 , a valve stop 136 and a wave ring retainer 138 . valve seat 132 is a flat metal disc shaped member defining a discharge passage 140 , a pair of alignment apertures 142 and a cavity 144 . non - orbiting scroll member 70 defines a pair of alignment bores . when apertures 142 are in registry with the alignment bores , discharge passage 140 is aligned with discharge passage 76 . the shape of discharge passage 140 is the same as discharge passage 76 . the thickness of valve seat 132 , particularly in the area of cavity 144 is minimized to minimize the recompression volume for compressor 10 , which increases the performance of compressor 10 . the bottom surface of cavity 144 adjacent to valve plate 134 includes a contoured surface 148 . the flat horizontal upper surface of valve seat 132 is used to secure valve plate 134 around its entire circumference . contoured surface 148 of cavity 144 provides for the normally open characteristic of valve assembly 130 . contoured surface 148 may be a generally planar surface a shown in fig4 a or contoured surface 148 may be a curved surface . while cavity 144 and contoured surface 148 are shown as a pocket within valve seat 132 , it is within the scope of the present disclosure to have cavity 144 and thus surface 148 extend through the edge of valve seat 132 . also , it is within the scope of the present disclosure to eliminate valve seat 132 and incorporate cavity 144 and surface 148 directly into and onto non - orbiting scroll 70 if desired . valve plate 134 is a flat thin metal disc shaped member that includes an annular ring 150 , a generally rectangular portion 152 extending radially inward from ring 150 and a generally circular portion 154 attached to the radial inner end of rectangular portion 152 . rectangular portion 152 is designed to be smaller in width than circular portion 154 . this reduced section therefore has a lower bending load than circular portion 154 , which results in a faster opening of valve assembly 130 . this reduced section of rectangular portion 152 is acceptable from a durability standpoint since contoured surface 148 reduces the stress loading on this reduced section . the size and shape of portion 154 is designed to completely cover discharge passage 140 of valve seat 132 . the generally circular shape of portion 154 eliminates valve breakage that is associated with rectangular valve plates . in general , valve plates can have a tendency to twist during the closing of the valve due to the pressure fluctuations across the valve . when a rectangular shape valve twists before closing , the outside corner of the rectangle will hit first causing high loading and the breakage of the corner . the present disclosure , by using a generally circular portion to close the valve , eliminates the possibility of this corner breakage . valve plate 134 also includes a pair of bosses 156 , which define a pair of alignment apertures 158 . when apertures 158 are in registry with apertures 142 of valve seat 132 , rectangular portion 152 positions circular portion 154 in alignment with discharge passage 140 . the thickness of valve plate 134 is determined by the stresses developed in rectangular portion 152 as valve plate 134 deflects from its closed position to its open position as described below . valve stop 136 is a thick metal disc shaped member that provides support and backing for valve plate 134 and valve seat 132 . valve stop 136 is similar in configuration to valve plate 134 and includes an annular ring 160 , a generally rectangular portion 162 extending radially inward from ring 160 , a generally circular portion 164 attached to the radially inner end of rectangular portion 162 and a support section 166 extending between circular portion 164 and ring 160 on the side of portion 164 opposite to portion 162 . valve stop 136 also includes a pair of bosses 168 , which define a pair of alignment apertures 170 . when apertures 170 are in registry with apertures 158 in valve plate 134 , rectangular portion 162 is aligned with rectangular portion 152 of valve plate 134 and it positions circular portion 164 in alignment with circular portion 154 of valve plate 134 . rectangular portion 162 and circular portion 164 cooperate to define a curved contoured surface 172 . discharge valve assembly 130 is assembled to non - orbiting scroll member 70 by first placing valve seat 132 within recess 78 with contoured surface 148 facing upward while aligning apertures 142 with bores 146 , which aligns passage 140 with passage 76 . next , valve plate 134 is placed on top of valve seat 132 within recess 78 while aligning apertures 158 with apertures 142 , which aligns circular portion 154 with passage 140 . next , valve stop 136 is placed on top of valve plate 134 within recess 78 while aligning apertures 170 within apertures 158 , which aligns portions 162 and 164 with portions 152 and 154 , respectively . a roll pin 176 is inserted through each aligned set of apertures 170 , 158 and 142 and press fit into each bore 146 to maintain the alignment of these components . finally , retainer 138 is installed within recess 78 to maintain the assembly of valve assembly 130 with non - orbiting scroll member 70 . the assembly of retainer 138 sandwiches the entire annular ring 150 of valve seat 132 between the upper flat surface of valve seat 132 and ring 160 of valve stop 136 to secure and retain valve plate 134 . retainer 138 is a wave ring retainer that is disposed within a groove 180 formed into recess 78 of non - orbiting scroll member 70 . the wave shape of retainer 138 causes it to engage both the upper surface 182 and the lower surface 184 of groove 180 to adequately retain discharge valve assembly within recess 78 , as shown in fig4 a . the wave shape of retainer 138 also allows for axial movement of discharge valve assembly due to the resilience and , thus , compression of the wave ring retainer as shown in fig4 b . discharge valve assembly 130 is normally in a condition wherein valve plate 134 abuts the upper flat surface on valve seat 132 . contoured surface 148 spaces valve plate 134 from valve seat 132 to provide for the normally open characteristic of valve assembly 130 . this allows limited fluid flow from discharge muffler chamber 80 into the compression pockets formed by scroll members 56 and 70 . in order to close valve assembly 130 , fluid pressure within muffler chamber 80 biases valve plate 134 against contoured surface 148 of valve seat 132 when the fluid pressure in chamber 80 is greater than the fluid pressure within the central most fluid pocket formed by scroll members 56 and 70 . during operation of compressor 10 , the fluid pressure differential between fluid in discharge chamber 80 and fluid within the central most fluid pocket formed by scroll members 56 and 70 will move valve plate 134 between abutment with contoured surface 148 of valve seat 132 and abutment with valve stop 136 or between a first closed position and a second open position . the normally open position of valve assembly 130 eliminates the force that is required to open a typical discharge valve . the elimination of this force lowers the pressure differential for operating the valve , which , in turn , lowers power losses . in addition the normally open feature reduces the sound generated during the closing of the valve due to the gradual closing of the valve rather than the sudden closure of a normally closed valve . contoured surface 148 provides for this gradual closing feature . the valve of the present disclosure operates solely on pressure differentials . finally , the unique design for valve assembly 130 provides a large flow area to improve the flow characteristics of the system . when valve plate 134 is in its second or open position , additional discharge pressure within discharge passage will react against discharge valve assembly 130 and it will eventually exceed the spring force being applied by wave ring retainer 138 . discharge valve assembly 130 will then move axially upward to the position shown in fig4 b , the third or fully open position , to allow fluid flow around the outer periphery of discharge valve assembly 130 . valve plate 134 is sandwiched between valve seat 132 and valve stop 136 with annular ring 160 of valve stop 136 abutting annular ring 150 of valve plate 134 , which , in turn , abuts the upper flat surface of valve seat 132 . rectangular portion 152 and circular portion 154 normally lie in an unstressed condition in a generally horizontal position as shown in fig4 a . the deflection of valve plate 134 occurs in rectangular portion 152 and circular portion 154 . to fully close , portions 152 and 154 deflect toward valve seat 132 and to open portions 152 and 154 deflect in the opposite direction toward valve stop 136 . the stresses encountered by valve plate 134 are stresses that are both plus and minus in direction from the neutral normally open position . thus , when comparing the stresses of valve plate 134 with those encountered by the flap valve of a normally closed discharge valve , the stresses are significantly reduced . the normally closed flap valve begins in a position adjacent a valve seat when the flap valve is unstressed . as the valve begins to open the stresses begin at the unstressed condition and continue to grow as the flap valve opens . thus they are unidirectional from the unstressed condition . the present disclosure , by centering the stressed conditions of valve plate 134 on both sides of the unstressed condition , significantly reduces the stress loading experienced by valve plate 134 . in order to further reduce the stress loading and thus the life of valve plate 134 , the shape of contoured surface 148 of valve seat 132 and contoured surface 172 of valve stop 136 are chosen to ensure a gradual loading and minimizing of the stresses by distributing the loads over a broader area . finally , the rounded contours and transitions between ring 150 , rectangular portion 152 and circular portion 154 are designed to eliminate stress risers . this elimination of stress risers , the equal distribution of the load and the reduction in the maximum stresses encountered significantly improves the life and performance for discharge valve assembly 130 .	5
reference is now made to the drawings for an illustration of different embodiments of the protective dome of the present invention . this is meant for use to prevent theft of the finial on a lamp shade structure . the dome structure of the present invention is preferably of a lightweight clear plastic material that is relatively thin but is sufficiently rigid so that it cannot easily be removed from the lamp shade structure . this is illustrated in the drawings by the protective dome 10 . at the base 12 of the dome 10 there is provided a pair of oppositely disposed ears 14 that are used for securing the dome structure over the lamp shade rung structure shown generally in fig4 at 20 . this may include a plurality of rungs 20 emanating radially from a center post 22 where the finial 24 is usually threadedly supported . the cross - sectional view of fig2 illustrates the dome structure at 10 disposed over the finial 24 . the ears 14 are each provided with holes 16 . fig4 shows the dome structure supported with the holes 16 disposed over the respective rungs 20 . next , a plastic tie 30 is used . this is secured through the hole 16 and about the rung 20 for securing the dome structure on either side thereof to the respective rungs 20 . preferably a tie 30 is used with each hole 16 . an alternate embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in fig6 . this also shows a dome structure 40 but instead of oppositely disposed ears 14 , there are illustrated three ears 42 each with a hole 44 therein . again , plastic ties may be used for securing each of these ears to lamp rungs . in the embodiment of fig6 , the ears are disposed spaced apart by 120 degrees each . reference is now made to a preferred embodiment of the present invention illustrated in fig7 - 9 . fig7 is a plan view of a preferred embodiment of a dome or cover protector . fig8 is a cross - sectional view taken along line 8 - 8 of fig7 and illustrating the dome arrangement . fig9 is a perspective view illustrating the protector cover of the present invention as secured about a lamp structure and in particular , about the finial . referring now to fig9 , the dome or cover structure or protector is illustrated as secured about the finial 24 . the dome structure 40 is comprised basically of a centrally disposed plastic dome 42 and integrally formed legs 44 and 46 . fig9 also illustrates the lamp shade at 50 and also illustrates the typical support rungs 52 . the dome 42 forms an enclosing chamber 43 that fits over the finial to prevent theft of the finial 24 . the perspective view of fig9 illustrates the legs 46 engaged in interlocked about one of the rungs 52 . this interlock arrangement makes it difficult for a casual observer to remove the finial . however , the interlock arrangement has sufficient flexibility so that it can be released by the store owner but cannot be easily released by the casual shopper . without this protective cover , one can too easily screw the finial 24 from its support post 22 . reference is now made to fig7 and 8 for further details of the protective cover 40 . as indicated previously , this cover is comprised of a centrally disposed plastic dome 42 and integrally formed legs 44 and 46 . the dome 42 forms an enclosing chamber 43 that fits over the finial to prevent theft of the finial . the legs have respective interlocking elements that engage with the lamp structure and preferably with the rungs 52 as illustrated in fig9 . the interlocking elements retain the dome about the finial and lamp structure . one of the interlocking elements comprises a series of teeth 45 that are disposed more toward the distal end of the leg 44 . the other leg 46 has corresponding interlock elements in the form of at least one slot . in the embodiment illustrated herein , there are a pair of spacedly disposed slots 47 . the longitudinal axis of each of these slots extends transverse to the longitudinal axis a of the cover . these slots 47 are preferably also disposed toward the distal free end of the leg 46 . as illustrated clearly in fig7 , the teeth are arranged in a sawtooth pattern . each tooth is defined by a first straight edge 51 that extends substantially orthogonal to the longitudinal axis a of the cover . moreover , the same tooth is also defined by a second straight edge 53 that is contiguous with the first straight edge but is disposed angularly with respect to the longitudinal axis a . this angular position is illustrated by the angle b in fig7 that may be on the order of 30 degrees . the dome structure of the present invention is constructed of a relatively lightweight plastic material and is relatively thin in construction . the plastic material is somewhat pliable . in accordance with one aspect of the present invention , it is preferred that the sawtooth arrangement be provided so that the maximum dimension d illustrated in fig7 is on the order of the same dimension c which is the length of the slots 47 . preferably , the dimension d is slightly greater than the dimension c so that once the sawtooth arrangement interlocks with the slot 47 , the two legs cannot be easily disengaged from each other . the sawtooth pattern can easily be forced through the slot c and once at the proper position , such as illustrated in fig9 , the dome structure is effectively secured about the finial . having now described a limited number of embodiments of the present invention , numerous other embodiments and modifications thereof are now contemplated as falling within the scope of the present invention .	5
having reference to fig7 , the illustrated drill cuttings cleaning system 1 may be used in - line with a source 2 of wet cuttings 3 , such as an on - going drilling rig operation , from which it directly receives wet drill cuttings 3 from the rig &# 39 ; s cuttings / fluid separation assembly . alternatively the cleaning system 1 may be supplied with cuttings 3 from another source , such as a sump left after drilling has ended . the cuttings 3 may be supplied at a constant or variable rate on a continuous or batch basis . in the case of an on - going drilling operation , the drilling fluids are circulated through the borehole to carry drill cuttings from the bottom of the borehole to ground surface while drilling is taking place . it is necessary to remove most of the solid drill cuttings from the drilling fluid to maintain proper fluid properties for hole cleaning and other related concerns such as well bore stability , rate of penetration and formation damage . the solid drill cuttings are normally mechanically separated from the drilling fluid by a combination of steps . first , the solids - laden drilling fluid issuing from the borehole is flowed over a shale shaker that uses screens to remove most of the coarse solids . the shaker fluid underflow is then passed through a centrifuge to separate out solid fines . the product streams of the shaker overflow and the centrifuge underflow each provide wet cuttings 3 that need to be processed by cleaning systems such as that of this invention . the shaker overflow and centrifuge underflow streams may be processed either singly or in combination . they have a highly variable fluid content , ranging between 5 - 45 wt . %, typically around 20 wt . %. these product streams provide the “ wet cuttings ” that are to be processed . the wet cuttings 3 may be fed directly into the cleaning system 1 . alternatively , they may be pre - treated , when suitable , by techniques such as solvent washing or in equipment , such as the brandt / wadeco high g ™ dryer or a screw press , to reduce liquid content . having regard to fig1 , 2 and 3 , the processor 4 is now described in connection with its application to wet cuttings 3 contaminated with hydrocarbon - based drilling fluid . the processor 4 is a directly heated , mechanical mixing device . the drive motors and other peripheral equipment necessary for a complete operating system are not shown in the figures because they have no unique features relative to the invention . all components of the processor 4 are selected to operate reliably at temperatures sufficient to vaporize the hydrocarbon liquids contaminating the wet cuttings 3 , plus an additional safety margin to give a maximum failure temperature above operating temperature . the normal expected operating temperature is about 650 ® f ., a temperature which is sufficient to vaporize substantially all of the hydrocarbons from the wet cuttings 3 given the properties of currently used hydrocarbon - based drilling fluids . design temperature capability should be determined from the vaporization characteristics of the fluids to be vaporized . if these characteristics are not published or known , lab experiments can be conducted to find the appropriate temperature . the maximum temperature to provide a processing safety margin is dependent on material selection and detail design . in the preferred embodiment shown , the thermal processor 4 comprises a trough - shaped , fixed ( i . e . non - rotating ) mixing vessel 5 containing one or more rotating mechanical rotors 6 . the rotor type may be , but is not limited to , a ribbon blender , a paddle assembly or a discontinuous flight auger assembly . the rotor 6 shown is a ribbon blender extending longitudinally of the vessel chamber 7 . the outside ribbon 8 mixes cuttings and advances them toward the feed inlet 9 while the inside ribbon 10 mixes cuttings and advances them toward the product outlet 11 and overflow weir 12 . the ribbons 8 , 10 function cooperatively to back mix partly dried , hotter cuttings with incoming colder wet cuttings . otherwise stated , the general flow of the outside cuttings toward the feed inlet 9 assists in pushing the incoming wet cuttings 3 toward the longitudinal axis of the vessel chamber 7 . the vessel 5 and rotors 6 are suitably sealed to prevent gas leakage in or out . the vessel 5 may be operated under positive pressure , vacuum or neutral pressure . as previously stated , the vessel 5 has a feed inlet 9 . it also has a solids product outlet 11 comprising an overflow weir 12 , for controlling solids level . it further has a bottom outlet 13 and gate valve 14 for cleaning and periodic removal of larger solids . the larger solids , such as lumps , tend to be retained by the weir 12 . the vessel 5 also has a top outlet 21 for gas and vapor removal . a variable capacity combustion heater 15 provides hot combustion gases through a plenum 16 supplying nozzles 17 located along the length of the vessel chamber 7 adjacent its base . the hot gases provide direct heat to the chamber contents and , in conjunction with the mixing action , facilitate the two - pronged heat transfer method . the chamber 7 contents therefore receive direct heating , while the mixing causes conduction heating as well , since the drier material absorbs heat and in turn transfers it to the less dry material . the heater 15 is operated at close to stoichiometric conditions to prevent entrance of oxygen into the chamber 7 . the heater 15 should be equipped with conventional fail - safe means to prevent introduction of air when the heater fails or runs out of fuel . the feed inlet 9 is equipped with an air - lock 18 and a lump breaker 19 in sequence , to provide a seal preventing air penetration and to ensure a consistent material feed flow . as previously mentioned , partly dried , hotter cuttings are mixed by the rotor 6 toward the incoming wet cuttings 3 to promote favourable conditioning and reduce caking and agglomeration . as cuttings 3 are dried , their volume in the vessel chamber 7 increases and they overflow the weir 12 and exit the vessel chamber 7 through a rotary airlock 20 . the drier cuttings , being lighter than the wetter cuttings 3 , tend to rise to overflow the weir 12 . the top outlet 21 is optionally connected by a duct 22 with a baghouse 23 , for removing contained fines ( see fig4 to 7 ). the top outlet 21 and duct 22 are designed to be large , to slow gas velocity and reduce fines carry over . the direct connection of the vessel 5 top outlet 21 with the baghouse 23 is designed to promote efficient gas transfer and to reduce or eliminate the need for baghouse 23 heating to prevent condensation . the close proximity to the vessel 5 enables use of vessel heat in the baghouse 23 . having regard to fig7 , the baghouse 23 is , in turn , optionally connected by a duct 24 with a condenser 25 and separator 26 for condensing and producing valuable fluids 27 and removing non - condensable gases 28 . the baghouse 23 will be conventionally equipped with air - locks to maintain a seal for solids removal . the weir 12 provides the main control over the vessel - volume of solids within the vessel 5 . the heater 15 is controlled to provide adequate heat both in the vessel chamber 7 and in the vapor space 29 to prevent condensation in the baghouse 23 . the seals , valves and air - locks maintain a low oxygen environment to prevent explosion and other unwanted chemical reactions . the process of the preferred embodiment is now described . preferably , prior to treatment of wet cuttings 3 , the vessel chamber 7 is filled with a dry charge of material comparable to dry , treated cuttings . hot sand would be a suitable material for the first charge . subsequent applications could use residual cuttings after conclusion of treatment . this dry charge forms the base material for both conditioning incoming wet cuttings 3 to promote faster , more even drying , and providing heat transfer for drying of the wet cuttings 3 . the mechanical rotor ( s ) 6 may be started prior , during or after feeding the dry charge into the vessel chamber 7 , but preferably prior to the introduction of wet cuttings 3 . preferably , the rotor 6 speed is variable , and the attachments to the shaft have an adjustable configuration . normally , the rotor 6 speed will result in a maximum outside tip velocity of less than about 300 feet per minute . the heater 15 is started up , introducing heat through the nozzles 17 into the chamber 7 to bring the temperature to approximately 650 ° f . ( approximately 340 ° c . ), as measured in the head space 29 . the actual temperature requirement is determined by the vaporization characteristics of the fluids being removed . at this time , wet cuttings 3 are fed through the feed air - lock 18 and lump breaker 19 into the vessel chamber 7 . as the material enters the vessel chamber 7 , it is mixed with drier cuttings to reduce average moisture content to reduce the risk of caking . in addition , it is heated by contact with the hot , drier cuttings and with the hot gases from the combustion heater 15 that heat all the material in the vessel chamber 7 . in this way the wet cuttings 3 are simultaneously conditioned and heated . as the wet cuttings 3 are dried , their volume in the vessel chamber 7 increases and they overflow the outlet weir 12 , exiting the vessel chamber 7 . the following example illustrates the robust methods used to determine parameters such as the desirable vessel chamber volume for conditioning the wet cuttings . an important element in selection of design parameters is the understanding of material characteristics and operator requirements . in an ongoing drilling operation , stoppages are to be avoided , so very robust assumptions are desirable . an 8 metric tonne per hour unit is to be used . wet cuttings from the centrifuge underflow and shaker overflow can vary a lot but can average 20 % by weight moisture , with extremes as high as 40 % having been measured due to improper equipment performance . this “ worst case ” should be allowed for . to prevent caking , measurements show that caking tendencies drop off as the moisture content drops below approximately 12 %. at 20 % by weight moisture , a 1 : 1 ratio may suffice . at 40 % moisture , 3 : 1 may be required . with a safety margin , ratio of 4 : 1 by weight may be selected . this means that 4 metric tonnes per hour of wet cuttings require an additional volume of 32 metric tonnes of dry cuttings per hour (“ dry ” in this case meaning a moisture level at or near the desired post treatment target level , normally less than 3 % liquid by weight ). with an expected residence time of 10 minutes , or ⅙ of an hour , the volume would be ( 32 + 8 )/ 6 = 6 . 67 tonnes . laboratory scale model tests have shown that expected residence time of 3 - 5 minutes is adequate for drying , so the 10 minute residence time is conservative . the wet cuttings have a density of approximately 1 , 700 kg / m3 , and the dry cuttings have a density of about 2 , 600 kg / m3 , so the weighted average provides a total volume of 2 . 84 cubic meters , which is rounded up to 3 . 0 cubic meters , approximately 110 cubic feet , for the vessel chamber . this also represents a desirable initial charge volume of dry material to be used . the volume required for a 10 minute residence time is much smaller than this , being approximately ⅙ the size . this will result in an actual residence time of approximately 1 hour for the average particle leaving the bulk moisture content sufficiently low to an approximately “ dry ” state and providing sufficient dry material for conditioning and heat transfer . the residence time will see the particles both dried and used for drying and conditioning purposes . the significant length of time provides additional protection against possible short - cutting of wet material towards the outlet . proposed general design specifications for the mixing vessel are as follows : one ( 1 ) heavy duty continuous - type ribbon mixer , as per the following specifications . service : continuous duty blending of hot , fine , dense and moderately / highly abrasive powdery material with densities to 163 lbs / cu . ft ., having relatively free flowing characteristics and non - hygroscopic in nature / behaviour . drive design based upon 24 hrs / day operation . trough : roll formed trough section with end plates welded to the trough to give rigid construction . to each end plate are externally mounted the reinforcing ribs , gussets and outboard bearing support brackets . to the trough section are fitted the four leg supports / mounting brackets for desired clearance of operation of unit . the top edge of the trough is formed to provide for cover attachment . trough designed for 2 psig maximum operating pressure . the trough is designed to accept a nozzle manifold near the bottom for direct heat injection . trough openings : full trough width weir - type flanged discharge and also a flanged discharge outlet with standard asa 150 # drilling pattern to accommodate 10 ″ dia . valve . trough sheathing : seal welded stainless steel sheet metal , thickness and exact composition to be determined by desired wear characteristics . ribbon blender : three piece heavy duty , construction consisting of drive end stub shaft , centre ribbon stirrer section and tail end stub shaft . all sections are provided with flanges , which are machined for perfect alignment and , when bolted together , give a concentric assembly with constant clearance . the ribbon comprises a solid shaft , pipe or mechanical tube through which the support arms are fitted and welded . the right and left hand pitched internal and external spiral ribbon flights are fitted and welded to these arms . these are arranged in such a way that the inside flights generally move the product towards the discharge end of the trough and the outside ribbons generally move the product towards the inlet . this motion , together with movement tangential to the ribbon flight , gives the multi - motion mixing and blending that ensures a reasonably homogeneous product . shaft seals : water - cooled stuffing box type packing glands externally mounted for ease of service and adjustment . glands supplied with connection for use for air purging / lubrication / flushing of packings , packing rings of the braided rope type with spacers and lantern rings compatible with process conditions . shaft bearings : heavy duty , sealed for life , 5 15 / 16 ″ diameter , adapter sleeve mounted , spherical roller , self - aligning pillow block bearings with cast / ductile iron bodies and standard double lip seal , externally outboard mounted and designed for continuous operation . cover : reinforced gasketed construction to include feed openings and ductwork to connect to solids removal and / or condensation equipment . note : ribbon mixers ideally should be running while loading of units and , unless specified , are designed as far as power requirements , to operate in this manner . they will , in the event of power outages , start under full load , but this should not be general manner of operation . with this in mind , if units are to be manually loaded , we recommend the provision of bag support grids and possibly safety interlocks which provide operator safeguards during loading . bag support grids and dust take - off vents are available as optional extras , which will be quoted upon request . discharge : discharge of mixer is through a full trough width weir - type flanged connection and also through a flanged nozzle at bottom center of the trough . a valve of 10 ″ diameter is recommended for this unit . discharge valve : 10 ″ diameter knife gate valve lug / wafer style mounting for installation to ansi class 125 / 150 lb flange and with materials of construction : clearance : supports designed for totally open both sides access and with a clearance height of approximate 24 ″ under discharge valve mounting flange face . motor : 60 h . p ., high efficiency , 3 / 60 / 575 volts , 1750 rpm , washdown protection , tefc enclosure . motor — reducer coupling : steelflex or equal high speed coupling , 90 hp mechanical rating . reducer : right angle arrangement , helical bevel gear reducer with approx . 80 : 1 reduction ratio , foot mounted type with 1 . 4 minimum service factor ; 85 hp mechanical rating , which drives mixer shaft at approximately 22 rpm . reducer — ribbon mixer stirrer coupling : rigid type , double engagement gear type with 1 . 4 service factor , 85 hp mechanical rating . materials of construction : trough , cover and stirrer — all parts in contact with product in type 304 stainless steel . balance — supports , guards etc . in carbon steel . optional : additional paddle - type mixing element using material with higher duty wear characteristics for high temperature , abrasive , corrosive conditions . for heating requirements , based on a ratio of 90 % oil , 10 % water in the fluid , and a specific heat of 0 . 25 btu / lbof for the solids , net heating requirements can be approximately 500 , 000 btu per metric tonne , for a total of 4 million btu per hour . estimating an 80 % efficiency , the gross moves to 5 million per hour . to maintain a safety margin in case of severe short term heating demand , select 6 million btu per hour . the expected pressure requirement for the combustion heating unit may be : 20 ″ water for the plenum and nozzles , 50 ″ water to penetrate the material in the vessel , 10 ″ for the baghouse , and 20 ″ for the condenser for a total of 100 ″. a safety margin may be maintained by using a minimum of 120 ″ and a positive displacement blower , such as a roots blower . this process may provide more than adequate pressure while controlling airflow into the combustion unit . the heating unit can be capable of modulating its output to maintain pre - set operating temperature ranges , especially for the exiting gases . the plenum may require approximately 220 - 1 / 2 ″ nozzles near the bottom of the vessel and distributed along the length . in one embodiment the vessel may be 120 ″ long . consequently 2 rows of nozzles may further be required to allow for space between the nozzles . the manifold will require lining appropriate for sustained use at temperatures generated by diesel combustion . the same lining may also be required for the nozzles . the combustion gas mass flow rate may be determined using stoichiometric air - fuel ratios by calculating the mass flow rate for gas from the wet cuttings , and by converting to volume based on a low estimate of density of 0 . 033 lb / ft3 . the baghouse flow rates may be approximately 4200 cfm ( approximately double the flow rate from the burner ), also the expected flow rate through the condenser . the condenser requires handling a mixture of approximately 50 % non - condensable gas . the solids removal equipment may remove solids from the mixing vessel at a rate of approximately 10 % of the dry solids being fed into the vessel . this 10 % estimation is based upon using stoke &# 39 ; s law , with an expected gas flow velocity of 1 . 4 feet per second , and a viscosity of 2 . 83 × 10 - 4 pascal - seconds . the viscosity level may be chosen at a high level for a safety factor as it may result in more carryover of solids . all particles of approximately 10 microns or less , which may comprise slightly less than 10 % of the total solids may be expected to be entrained , and thus should be removed prior to condensation . this amount calculates to : 8 metric tonnes per hour raw feed × 0 . 8 dry fraction × 0 . 1 = 0 . 64 metric tonnes per hour ( i . e ., 640 kg or approximately 1400 pounds per hour ). this may establish the baghouse design requirements , in conjunction with the temperature and pressure requirements . as an option , cyclone separators may be used to reduce the solids loading prior to the baghouse by approximately 75 % where high efficiency cyclones are used . depending on the particle size distribution of the drill cuttings , alternative methods may be used . these may include but are not limited to just using cyclone separators , using a scrubber , or no fine solids removal method at all . the fine solids control method selected and its design should be based on the characteristics of the expected material to be processed .	8
as is familiar to those skilled in the art , computers typically are equipped with one or more &# 34 ; bays &# 34 ; into which disk or tape drives can be installed . such bays are sized in accordance with industry standards to facilitate their use with a variety of after - market drive products . standard dimensions are approximately 5 . 5 or 3 . 5 inches in width and 1 . 75 or 3 . 5 inches in height . &# 34 ; rails &# 34 ; on the sides of a disk drive cooperate with support structure inside the bay to facilitate mounting of the drive in the bay . computers are also typically equipped with internal power supplies that are pre - wired to supply power to drives that may subsequently be installed in the bays . this wiring comprises power and ground wires that terminate in an industry - standard connector . this connector is of a design adapted to mate with a corresponding standard connector that is found on most disk drives . referring now to fig1 - 6 , an exemplary printer assembly 10 includes an internal chassis 12 containing a printer mechanism 14 and an interface card 16 , all adapted to be slidably mounted within a drive bay 18 of a computer 20 by a sliding mechanism 22 and an external chassis 24 . the illustrated printer 14 is a thermal printer , such as the seiko stp411g - 320 , which can print 40 characters per line in normal mode and 80 characters per line in compressed mode . the interface card 16 interfaces the printer to an output port 26 of an associated computer 20 . a suitable interface card is the seiko if 4112 - gcb , which includes both serial and parallel inputs . ( in the illustrated embodiment , a simplified version of the seiko interface card is used and omits the parallel input port , since only one port is required .) the interface card drives an indicator led 30 on a front panel 32 to indicate on line . a pushbutton 28 operates the printer &# 39 ; s line feed function . the sliding mechanism 22 comprises left and right nested channel slide assemblies 34 , 36 which couple the internal chassis 12 to the external chassis 24 . the nested channel slide assemblies are commercially available from grant hardware co . of west nyack , n . y . as part number 4435 - 8 . the external chassis 24 comprises an aluminum frame sized and shaped so the internal chassis 12 can nest therein . attached to the sides of the frame are mounting rails 40 , 42 which are dimensioned to cooperate with corresponding mechanical supports in the drive bay of the computer to facilitate mounting of the printer assembly 10 therein . the illustrated rails are designed to cooperate with mechanical supports used in a hewlett - packard computer . those skilled in the art will recognize that different rails may be used to accommodate the requirements of different computers . protruding from the rails are grounding tabs 43 that are used in the hewlett - packard drive bay to assure electrical continuity . the internal chassis 12 is formed of sheet aluminum and defines an open chamber 44 in which a roll 46 of thermal paper rests . the thermal printing mechanism 14 is disposed along one edge 48 of this chamber , and paper from the roll 46 is routed therethrough . a paper cover door 50 , having a lift tab 52 , is hingedly mounted at the opposite edge 54 of this chamber to provide access to the printer . a female latch element 56 is desirably mounted on a rear panel 58 of the internal chassis 12 . this element cooperates with a male element 60 mounted in the rear of the external chassis 24 to hold the internal chassis nested therein . to extend the internal chassis from the external chassis , a user simply pulls on a grip 62 on the front panel 32 , thereby separating the mated members and permitting the printer assembly 10 to be extended from its nested position . when the printer assembly is fully extended to its second position , latch members 63 on the sliding mechanism 22 engage to maintain the printer in this position . release members 67 can be depressed to free the printer from its extended position and to permit sliding back to the nested position . as noted , most computers include an internal power cable 64 adapted to provide power from an internal power supply 65 to disk drives that may be mounted in their drive bays . the connectors 66 used on such cables are generally standardized to facilitate connection to a variety of accessory disk drives . the external chassis 24 of the illustrated printer assembly 10 desirably includes a connector 68 ( fig6 ) on the rear panel 58 thereof adapted to mate with and receive power through such a cable . the rear panel of the external chassis 24 is also equipped with a second connector 72 ( fig3 and 6 ) adapted to receive serial data from a serial interface card 26 mounted in the computer . again , the connectors 73 used with serial data cards are generally standardized , and the connector 72 on the rear panel of the printer is desirably adapted to mate with and receive data from such a standard connection . ( in some computers , the processor board 74 contains a serial interface , so no serial card is needed .) an umbilical cable 75 couples the power and data signals from the rear panel connectors 68 and 72 to a connector that mates with a connector on the interface card 16 . the umbilical cable is designed to accommodate movement of the internal chassis 12 relative to the external chassis 24 when the printer is moved between its first and second positions . in one embodiment of the invention , the sliding mechanism 22 , when fully extended , closes a microswitch 70 on the interface card 16 that applies power to the interface circuitry and printer mechanism 14 . by such an arrangement , power is applied to these elements only when the assembly is extended to its second position , ready for use . this interlock prevents inadvertent operation of the printer while nested within the case of the computer . from the foregoing , it will be recognized that the provision of a printer as an integral part of a computer overcomes a great number of drawbacks that have hindered use of printers with portable / transportable / rack mount computers , and with computers used in applications where space is limited . for example , no longer must a printer and associated cabling accompany a transportable computer wherever a user contemplates a hard copy output might be required . now , the computer itself can be equipped with a dedicated printer that is available when needed , and conveniently stored when it is not . similarly , no longer must a user bother with connecting and disconnecting a printer to power and data each time it is required . instead , these connections are made internally , ready at a moment &# 39 ; s notice . having described and illustrated the principles of my invention with reference to a preferred embodiment , it will be apparent that the invention can be modified in arrangement and detail without departing from such principles . for example , while the invention has been illustrated with reference to an embodiment employing a thermal printer , it will be recognized that the principles of the invention are equally applicable to printers employing other technologies , such as ink jet , impact / dot - matrix , xerographic , etc . similarly , while the invention has been illustrated with reference to the mounting of a printer in a computer , it will be recognized that a variety of other electronic products can benefit from provision of a printer integrally therein . exemplary are test instruments which include one or more drive bays to facilitate software programming of certain measurement routines . still further , it will be recognized that the invention is not limited just to equipment that includes an industry standard drive bay . rather , any cabinet or enclosure that has adequate space therein can be adapted to receive a printer mounting arrangement in accordance with the principles of this invention . finally , while the invention has been illustrated with reference to an embodiment in which the printer assembly is slidably mounted in a drive bay , it will be recognized that in other embodiments the printer assembly can be fixedly mounted in such a bay . in such other embodiments , paper printed by the printer can be routed through an opening in the front panel . rolls of paper can be installed either through a doorway in the front panel , or by withdrawing the assembly from the bay . in view of the many possible embodiments to which the principles of my invention may be put , it should be recognized that the detailed embodiment is illustrative only and should not be taken as limiting the scope of my invention . rather , i claim as my invention all such embodiments as may come within the scope and spirit of the following claims and equivalents thereto .	8
example embodiments will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings . in fig1 - 5 , there are depicted various prior art audio recordation and reproduction devices . some of these devices , such as the voice recorder of fig1 , appear to only have one purpose , which is to facilitate voice recordation and playback . alliteratively , the voice recorders of fig2 and 3 also include a pocket clip 10 . notably , the voice recorder of fig3 is in the shape of a pen , and is a writing utensil . as is well known in the art , clip 10 is commonly found on writing utensils such as pens , and facilitates attaching a pen to a person &# 39 ; s pocket , for example . it is also possible to attach the pen , via clip 10 , to a document , or the like . however , unlike spring clips , this is not known to be a reliable way of attaching an object , such as pen , to a document , nor a reliable way of holding more than one document together . particularly in the case of the voice - recorder of fig2 , or the voice - recording pen of fig3 , clip 10 would not be used like a spring clip to rely on securely attaching the voice recorders to documents , for example , or binding several documents together . at least one evident reason for this is the known geometry , binding capacity , and awkwardness of clip 10 in combination with the voice - recorders of fig2 and 3 . this awkwardness is not adaptable to mimicking the functionality or reliability of a spring clip in binding to articles , or binding articles together . fig4 depicts a prior art voice - recording key - chain with an attached key ring 12 for keys . again , neither this embodiment of the voice recorder , nor its combination with a key ring 12 , is adapted to act or be used like a spring clip in binding to an article , or binding articles together . fig5 depicts a prior art voice - recording unit that houses adhesively backed notes 14 and a writing utensil 16 . this unit is adapted to adhere to a surface via a suction cup 18 . once again , this unit does not possess the functionality of a spring clip . fig6 - 9 are commonly known prior art embodiments of variously sized and shaped paper clips . as is well known in the art , these clips are resiliently and biasedly bound to articles , such as paper , and are adapted to hold articles , such as two or more documents , together . it is observed that in the prior art , these clips have not been outfitted with voice - recording units . a fuller discussion of the geometric and mechanical aspects of these clips will be provided , below , with reference to fig2 - 28 . fig1 depicts a commonly known prior art binder clip . such binder clips are in the same category with the paper clips of fig6 - 9 in that they are designed , intended , and adapted to be securedly , resiliently , and biasedly attached to articles , and hold multiple articles together . once again , it is observed that in the prior art , such clips have not been outfitted with voice - recording units . a fuller discussion of the geometric and mechanical aspects of binder clips will be provided , below , with reference to fig1 - 24 . fig1 depicts commonly known adhesively backed paper notes . as discussed above , among other uses , these notes are used to convey written messages between people . it is readily observed that the time and effort in writing a sentence , versus saying and recording it , may be quite significantly different . for example , reference is made to fig1 , where an adhesively backed note 20 containing written instructions is adhered to a document bound to other documents by a common binder clip similar to one depicted in fig1 . it is readily recognized that composing the message on note 20 , particularly in legible penmanship , may take approximately 30 seconds , while saying and recording the same message onto a voice recorder may take approximately 5 seconds , and with no writing effort . the time and effort differences being apparent , the prior art has not provided any meaningful ways in which to securely , resiliently and biasedly attach such a recorded voice message to a document so as to substitute or supplement note 20 . to that extent , with reference to fig1 , a prior art portable message device with a hook shaped attachment means for detachable attachment to the closure of automobiles , buildings , and the like is disclosed . in conjunction with this device , there is no recognition of the need for attaching a voice message to a document , as outlined herein . in part , evidence of this is the wide square profile u - shaped hook 22 that is adapted to hang on large objects as described above . fig1 also discloses a prior art portable message device which is adapted to be attached to various surfaces . however , the configuration of the attachment arm 24 is much like that of the device of fig1 , and functionally more closely approximates the pocket clip 10 than any of the binder clips discussed previously . once again , as compared to spring clips , the shortcomings of such an attachment arm to bind the voice recorder to an article , such as a document , or bind several documents together , is apparent . similarly , fig1 and 16 disclose prior art embodiments of various attempts to attach a voice recorder to a document . as evidenced by these figures , although perhaps having some specific useful advantages , the shortcomings of these efforts are that they do not provide a secure , resilient , reliable , reusable mode of directly attaching a voice recording to a document or documents . fig1 depicts a preferred embodiment of the present invention . more particularly , a binder clip , such as one well known in the art and disclosed in fig1 , is combined with audio recordation and playback circuitry and elements . the combined voice - recording clip (“ vrc ” for short ) is identified as 40 . for simplicity , and as discussed previously , with regard to the audio configurations , circuits , capabilities and elements of the audio recordation and playback device incorporated into the vrc , it shall enjoy the same broad definitions and understandings as given to previously outlined terms such as “ audio recordation and reproduction circuitry ” and “ voice recorders ”. the vrc 40 has a binder clip body 42 with a substantially triangular shape . body 42 has a first side 44 , a second side 46 , and a third side , or fulcrum , 48 . by virtue of this well - known configuration , the ends of sides 44 and 46 opposite the fulcrum 48 are resiliently biased toward each other , and form a pincher portion 50 . additionally , first and second actuating arms ( otherwise interchangeably referred to as extension or lever arms ) 52 and 54 , are attached to first and second sides 44 and 46 of the body 42 , respectively . the functionality of such binder clips is well known in the art , and revolves around having first and second actuating arms 52 and 54 above fulcrum 48 in order to provide levers upon which to exert a compressive force . when first and second actuating arms 52 and 54 are raised above fulcrum 48 , the urging of arms 52 and 54 toward each other translates over fulcrum 48 to urge the ends of sides 44 and 46 , respectively , at the pincher portion 50 , to separate . while separated , the vrc 40 may be attached to a document , or multiple documents , or other articles of interest . once done so , the urging of arms 52 and 54 toward each other may be ceased , thus yielding to , and resulting in , a compressive force exerted in the pincher portion 50 of clip body 42 , facilitating the secure attachment of the vrc 40 to the article ( s ) to which it is attached . the vrc 40 has a toggle switch 56 mounted on the third side 48 , which can be moved between a recording position 62 and a listening position 64 . additionally , mounted on the third side 48 are a microphone 58 , actuator button 60 , and a message indicator light 66 . a speaker 68 is mounted on the first side 44 of the clip body 42 , and a power source 70 is mounted on the second side 46 . in order to record an audio message , toggle switch 56 is first moved to the recording position 62 . then actuator button 60 is depressed and a voice message may be recorded onto the vrc 40 via microphone 58 . once recorded , message indicator light 66 indicates that a message is present in the vrc 40 . in order to listen to the message , the toggle switch 56 is moved to the listening position 64 . then actuator button 60 is depressed , and the message will be projected through speaker 68 . the original message may be rerecorded by simply following the steps for recording a message . a power source 70 is mounted to the second side 46 of clip body 42 to provide power to the circuit for accomplishing these outlined tasks . referring to fig1 , regardless of the order of the voice message being recorded first , or the vrc 40 first being clipped onto a document or set of documents 80 and then the voice message recorded onto it , the vrc 40 accomplishes the secure , resiliently biased attachment of a recorded voice message to a document or set of documents 80 . additionally , when the actuation button 60 is depressed , the audible message that would have taken approximately 30 seconds to write on an adhesive - backed note , will be heard through speaker 68 in the approximately five seconds that it took to say it . alternate embodiments of the present invention are depicted in fig1 - 22 , and 25 - 28 . in fig1 , the first actuating arm 52 is configured to contain a housing 90 that supports the electronics of the voice recordation and playback device . accordingly , the toggle switch 56 , with its recording position 62 and listening position 64 , as well as the microphone 58 , actuator button 60 , message indicator light 66 , speaker 68 , and power source 70 ( hidden ), are shown on housing 90 . the functioning of these elements , in combination with the functioning of this embodiment of the invention , is similar to that of the preferred embodiment , which has already been described . the difference in the embodiments between the existence , location and shape of the housing 90 supporting the electronics of the voice recordation and playback device is obvious to those skilled in the art , and so need not be further described in detail herein . similarly , for simplicity , with reference to alternate embodiments of the present invention as depicted in fig2 - 22 , as well as all subsequent figures and embodiments containing housing 90 , it is to be understood that housing 90 supports the electronics of the voice recordation and playback device , as described supra . another alternate embodiment of the present invention is depicted in fig2 where housing 90 is rectangular in shape , and removably attached to actuating arm 52 . yet another alternate embodiment of the present invention is depicted in fig2 where housing 90 is configured to attach to the first actuating arm 52 by snugly slipping over it . still another alternate embodiment of the present invention is depicted in fig2 where housing 90 is circular in shape , and removably attached to actuating arm 52 . fig2 and 24 depict the alternate embodiment of either fig1 or 20 in use . fig2 - 28 present more alternate embodiments of the present invention . in these embodiments , housing 90 is understood to be similar to what was described previously although having different shapes , as shown . additionally , these paper clip - type embodiments of the present invention differ from those of the previously discussed binder clip - type in the known mechanical , structural and kinematic differences that exist between paper clips and binder clips . namely , paper clips , such as those depicted in fig6 - 9 , typically are of unitary construction , and have a first end 102 , a second end 104 , and a bridge 106 linking the first and second ends 102 and 104 together . these clips are arranged so that the bridge 106 resiliently biases the first and second ends 102 and 104 toward being in a common geometric plane , such that when an object is wedged between the two ends 102 and 104 , the ends 102 and 104 compressively straddle the object . this behavior is well known to those skilled in the art . with particular reference to fig2 and 26 , one distinguishing feature of these embodiments is that the unitary wire voice recording clips ( vrc ) 100 and 120 have multiple bends in them . notably , vrc 100 has three substantially 180 - degree bends , while vrc 120 has six bends of varying degrees . these bends are more clearly visible in the prior art clips of fig6 and 7 . additionally , it is observed that the first and second ends 102 and 104 , although urged toward each other by bridge 106 , are not in the same plane with each other , but are rather , one on top of another . alternatively , with reference to fig2 and 28 , one distinguishing feature of vrcs 140 and 160 , is that the two ends 102 and 104 are located in substantially the same plane when the clips are not straddling an object . although the invention herein has been described with reference to particular embodiments , it is to be understood that these embodiments are merely illustrative of the principles and applications of the present invention . it is therefore to be understood that numerous modifications may be made to the illustrative embodiments and that other arrangements may be devised without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims . the foregoing description of the embodiments has been provided for purposes of illustration and description . it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention . individual elements or features of a particular embodiment are generally not limited to that particular embodiment , but , where applicable , are interchangeable and can be used in a selected embodiment , even if not specifically shown or described . the same may also be varied in many ways . such variations are not to be regarded as a departure from the invention , and all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of the invention .	8
when performing reflectance pulse oximetry , two main reasons justify the increase of the physical separation between optical parts ( leds and photo - diode ). 1 . in any pulse oximetry probe , the relative pulse amplitude is a good indicator of the quality of the probe placement . this quality factor , usually depicted as perfusion index ( pi ), is also interpreted as a quantification of the width of the vascular bed traversed by a light beam . it was demonstrated ( y . mendelson , noninvasive pulse oximetry utilizing skin reflectance photoplethysmography , ieee transactions on biomedical engineering , vol 35 , no 10 , 1988 ) that , given a reflectance probe , the pi is linearly increasing with the increase of the physical separation between the optical parts . 2 . the probability of direct - light being short - cut from the light sources to the light detector by scattering in the outer part of the skin or / and successive reflection in the probe - skin interface is reduced when both optical elements are dispersed . due to the reduced light short - cut , probe design can be simplified ( no glue fixing is required anymore ). however , by increasing the distance between the optical parts , the absolute intensity of received light at the light detector is exponentially decreased and , thus , the quantification of the pulsatile signal becomes problematic , compromising the feasibility of successfully identifying cardiac activity . in the state - of - the - art reflectance probes , the facts here exposed have imposed a trade - off between : increasing the physical separation of optical elements , thus reducing cross - talk and increasing the perfusion index ( pi ). assuring enough light intensity at the photo - detector . this trade - off has historically forced transmittance probes to include severe fixing mechanism such as glue or vacuum approaches , as described in the already mentioned j . g . webster publication or by v . konig ( reflectance pulse oximetry — principles and obstetric application in the zurich system , journal of clinical monitoring and computing 14 : 403 - 412 , 1998 ). the following table summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of near and far - field photo - plethysmography : the present invention merges the advantages of both near and far field photo - plethysmography in a single method . as shown in fig1 , the invention consists in combining far and near photo - plethysmographs so that : a near - field photo - plethysmograph allows the continuous tracking / detection of cardiac activity ; a far - field photo - plethysmograph performs pulse oximetry measurements on the basis of estimated cardiac activity information . according to the invention , a near - field reflectance photo - plethysmograph and a far - field reflectance photo - plethysmograph are merged in a unique device comprising : for the near - field function , a first light source 10 , which can be a led emitting in the infra - red range at 940 nm , a first light detector 11 , such as a photo - diode , located to receive light from the source , and a first analog - to - digital converter ( adc ) 12 connected at the output of the light detector ; for the far - field function , a second light source 13 , such as a led , emitting in the infra - red range at 940 nm , a second light detector 14 , such as a photo - diode , located to receive light from source 13 , a second analog - to - digital converter ( adc ) 15 connected at the output light detector 14 , a third light source 16 , such as a led , emitting in the red range at 660 nm , a third light detector 17 , such as a photo - diode , located to receive light from source 16 , and a third analog - to - digital converter ( adc ) 18 connected at the output of light detector 17 ; a microprocessor 19 connected at the outputs of analog - to - digital converters 12 , 15 and 18 ; and a display device 20 connected at the output of microprocessor 19 . the above - mentioned wavelength values of 660 and 940 nm are just given as examples . more generally , these wavelengths must be in the visible infra - red region , i . e comprised between 400 and 2000 nm , and be different from each other . as shown in fig2 , light sources 10 - 13 - 16 and light detectors 11 - 14 - 17 are positioned at the surface of the skin s of a body part . the light detectors are at the same location . near - field light source 10 is at a shorter distance from the detectors than far - field light sources 13 - 16 , located at the same place . typically , the separation between the near - field light source and the light detectors is between 4 and 10 mm , whereas the separation between the far - field light sources and the light detectors is between 10 and 50 mm . fig2 shows that the light collected by the detectors has travelled in tissue t longer and deeper for the far - field beam f than for the near - field beam n . the above described structure is a simplified presentation of the device of the invention . needless to mention that a single light detector and a single analog - to - digital converter can also be used in association with time - sharing control means adapted to apply to microprocessor 19 data corresponding respectively to the three light sources 10 , 13 and 16 . according to the present invention , the light sources and the light detectors can be arranged at the skin surface in many different configurations , the only rule to respect being : to collect a light beam having travelled over a short distance in the body , and to collect two light beams of different wavelengths in the visible infra - red region having travelled over a longer distance in the body . thus , for example , the three light sources can be located at the same place , with a near - field detector at short distance and far - field detectors at longer distance . another example is to have a plurality of light sources distributed around far - field detectors , with a near - field detector located at a shorter distance from one of the sources . fig3 shows , as a further example ( with the same reference letters as fig2 ), that the device of the invention can be arranged around the finger of a person . in that case , light sources 10 - 13 - 16 are located at the same place , near - field detector 11 is near the sources and far - field detectors 14 - 17 stand opposite to the light sources . due to the increased distance between light sources 13 - 16 and far light detectors 14 - 17 , the digital signals provided by far - field analog - to - digital converters 15 and 18 are noise polluted and render very difficult a reliable identification of the cardiac activity . but the reduced distance separating light source 10 and near light detector 11 assures enough received light intensity and provides a much better identification of the cardiac activity . in stage 21 , the near - field signals are used , therefore , to base the pulse oximetry measurements on an improved far - field information . the signals provided by stage 21 are finally used for conventional pulse oximetry calculations . as shown in fig1 , the digital output of near - field adc 12 is first applied to a band - pass filter 23 , such as a chebyshev filter type 1 , 3 rd order , having a band - pass of 0 . 5 to 3 . 5 hz . knowing that the useful portion of the signal corresponds to the normal , around 1 hz , cardiac frequency of a person , this filter eliminates the portions of the signal which are outside the 0 . 5 - 3 . 5 hz range . similarly , the digital outputs of infra - red far - field adc 15 and of red far - field adc 18 are first applied respectively to band - pass filters 24 and 25 , identical to band - pass filter 23 . in addition , the digital outputs of infra - red far - field adc 15 and of red far - field adc 18 are applied respectively to identical low - pass filters 26 and 27 , such as butterworth filters , 2 nd order , which have the function to eliminate the portion of the received signals above 0 . 2 hz . the remaining portion of the signals are taken respectively as the dc - infra - red ( dc ired ) and the dc - red ( dc red ) components of the far - field signals . the operation shown in 28 is the detection of the temporal position of every maximum of the signal delivered by band - pass filter 23 . the sequence of the maximum position is then used to perform , respectively in 29 and 30 , a triggered averaging of the infra - red and red far - field signals produced by band - pass filters 24 and 25 . the triggered averaging is performed in a similar way to that described in the already mentioned publication of j . g . webster . the triggered averaged signals resulting from operations 29 and 30 are taken respectively as the ac - infra - red ( ac ired ) and the ac - red ( ac red ) components of the far - field signals . finally , in stage 22 , the dc ired , dc red , ac ired and ac red signals are used to perform classical pulse oximetry calculations 31 , as described by j . g . webster . the results of the calculations are displayed by device 20 connected at the output of microprocessor 19 . reference is made , now , to fig4 which presents another method for obtaining pulse oximetry measurements from the signals delivered by band - pass filters 23 , 24 and 25 and by low - pass filters 26 and 27 . the elements common to the device of fig1 are designated by the same references as shown in fig4 , the near - field signals produced by band - pass filter 23 are used , in 32 , to estimate a a - priori representation of the spectral distribution of the cardiac activity , as disclosed , for example , in the publication of d . g . manolakis , statistical and adaptive signal processing , mcgraw - hill higher education , 2000 . then , the estimated representation of the spectral distribution of the cardiac activity is used , respectively in 33 and 34 , to denoise and / or restore the corrupted infra - red and red far - field signals produced by band - pass filters 24 and 25 . the technique used is described , for example , in the already mentioned publication of d . g . manolakis . the restored signals resulting from operations 33 and 34 are taken respectively as the ac - infra - red ( ac ired ) and the ac - red ( ac red ) components of the far - field signals . they are finally used to perform the classical pulse oximetry calculations 31 . the present invention can be used in many optical - based pulse oximetry applications . for example , a probe carrying the light sources and the light detectors can be placed : in a head band , the frontal bone acting as reflectance surface ; in a mask , the maxillary bone acting as reflectance surface ; in a chest - belt , the manubrium acting as reflectance surface ; around a finger ; around the leg or arm of a neonate ; as a ear - phone .	0
to obtain the full length human nhe3 gene , we prepared a composite cdna made up of the dna of three pieces : clone hkc - 5 , another nhe3 clone obtained using hkc - 3 as a probe , which overlaps with hkc - 3 and contains the entire 3 &# 39 ; region of human nhe3 ; and clone 23 - 3 , obtained using a new method described below . that composite cdna is set forth in schematically in fig1 while fig3 a - 3b provides the nucleotide sequence of the human nhe3 composite cdna ( above ) and the deduced amino acid sequence ( below ). we had previously reported a human nhe3 partial cdna clone hkc - 3 ( 26 ) ( report providing only the putative amino acid sequence of hkc - 3 ). colony hybridization screening of the library that yielded hkc - 3 , as well as two other libraries , did not provide the complete 5 &# 39 ; coding nucleotides of the nhe3 full length cdna . interestingly , the most 5 &# 39 ; nucleotide sequence found was at a location homologous to the most 5 &# 39 ; nucleotides of exon 2 of human nhe1 , and it is known that a 41 . 5kb intron separates exons 1 and 2 in human nhe1 . subsequent work in our laboratory supports the presence of a large intron segment between exons 1 and 2 that would make obtaining the 5 &# 39 ; end difficult . we subsequently also determined that a segment in the 5 &# 39 ; region is gc rich , further compounding the difficulty of cloning the 5 &# 39 ; end . accordingly , we developed a new method to clone the 5 &# 39 ; region . we first prepared a degenerate forward primer b8 , developed from the sequences encoding minicistrons found in the 5 &# 39 ; untranslated regions of both rabbit and rat nhe3 ( fig2 ). we ultimately obtained the remaining 5 &# 39 ; coding region ( clone 23 - 3 ) by reverse transcription / polymerase chain reaction ( rt - pcr ) of human kidney rna , based on a reverse primer , b3 , derived from hkc - 3 , and the forward primer b8 . the three pieces provided a composite of human nhe3 cdna . thus , an embodiment of the claimed invention is a dna molecule encoding human nhe3 comprising the nucleotide sequence of fig3 a - 3b . another embodiment of the invention is a dna molecule , or fragment thereof , encoding human nhe3 comprising the 5 &# 39 ; region of the nucleotide sequence of fig3 a - 3b . the invention also includes an expression vector comprising the dna molecule , or fragment thereof , encoding human nhe3 of fig3 a - 3b . a preferable expression vector is pece . another aspect of the invention is a host cell transfected with the expression vector containing the claimed dna . one such host cell is ps120 , a fibroblast cell derived from the chinese hamster lung fibroblast cell line ccl39 that lacks all endogenous na + / h + exchangers . in another embodiment , the claimed invention includes the protein or polypeptide encoded by the nucleotide sequence of fig3 a - 3b , or any fragment thereof . in an important embodiment , the nhe3 of the invention is the characteristic na + / h + exchanger of the brush border of the kidney and small intestine . thus , another embodiment of the invention relates to the use of a cell line transformed with nhe3 cdna as a screen for drugs that affect the brush border of the kidney or small intestine . in a preferred embodiment , the transformant is ps120 / nhe3 . another unexpected finding of the invention is the tissue distribution of the claimed human nhe3 . unlike the limited presence of rat and rabbit nhe3 in kidney , stomach , some intestinal tissues , and brain , the claimed human nhe3 has been detected in a variety of epithelial and nonepithelial human tissues , ranging as follows : kidney & gt ;& gt ; small intestine & gt ;& gt ; testes & gt ; ovary & gt ; colon = prostate & gt ; thymus & gt ; peripheral leukocyte = brain & gt ; spleen & gt ; placenta , and including endothelial cells . no nhe3 was detected in the heart , lung , liver , skeletal muscle , or pancreas . thus , in another embodiment , the invention relates to the use of a cell line transformed with nhe3 cdna as a screen for drugs that affect cells other than the epithelium of the kidney or small intestine , such as the endothelium of man . in a preferred embodiment , the transformant is ps120 / nhe3 , especially in screening for drugs which are useful to treat or cure hypertension and other medical conditions , including but not limited to those as noted above . the practice of the present invention will employ the conventional terms and techniques of molecular biology , microbiology , recombinant dna , and biochemistry that are within the ordinary skill of those in the art . see , for example , sambrook , et al ., molecular cloning : a laboratory manual , 2nd ed . cold spring harbor laboratory press ( 1985 ). nonetheless , we offer the following basic background information . dna , deoxyribonucleic acid , consists of two complementary strands of nucleotides , which include the four different bases compounds , adenine ( a ), thymine ( t ), cytosine ( c ), and guanine ( g ). a of one strand bonds with t of the other strand while c of one strand bonds to g of the other to form complementary &# 34 ; base pairs &# 34 ;, each pair having one base in each strand . a sequential grouping of three nucleotides ( a &# 34 ; codon &# 34 ;) codes for one amino acid . thus , for example , the three nucleotides cag codes for the amino acid glutamine . the 20 naturally occurring amino acids , and their one letter codes , are as follows : ______________________________________alanine ala aarginine arg rasparagine asn naspartic acid asp dasparagine or asx baspartic acidcysteine cys cglutamine gln qglutamine acid glu eglutamine or glx zglutamic acidglycine gly ghistidine his hisoleucine ile ileucine leu llysine lys kmethionine met mphenylalanine phe fproline pro pserine ser sthreonine thr ttryptophan trp wtyrosine tyr yvaline val v______________________________________ amino acids comprise proteins . dna is related to protein as follows : ## str1 ## genomic dna is all the dna sequences found in an organism &# 39 ; s cell . it is &# 34 ; transcribed &# 34 ; into messenger rna (&# 34 ; mrna &# 34 ;). complementary dna (&# 34 ; cdna &# 34 ;) is a complementary copy of mrna made in the laboratory by reverse transcription of mrna . unlike genomic dna , both mrna and cdna contain only the protein - encoding regions of the dna , the so - called &# 34 ; exons .&# 34 ; genomic dna also includes &# 34 ; introns &# 34 ; which do not encode proteins . collections or &# 34 ; libraries &# 34 ; of genomic dna and cdna may be constructed in the laboratory or obtained from commercial sources . the dna molecules present in the libraries may be of unknown function and chemical structure , and the proteins they encode may also be unknown . nonetheless , one can attempt to retrieve specific desired dna molecules from the libraries by screening the libraries with a gene probe . a gene probe bears a sequence that is complementary to the sequence of interest and will , accordingly , bond or &# 34 ; hybridize &# 34 ; with the sequence . once retrieved , the dna can be sequenced using techniques that are standard in the art , such as sanger &# 39 ; s dideoxy termination procedure . to orient oneself on the dna structure , it is referred to as having a 5 &# 39 ; end and a 3 &# 39 ; end based on the structure of the nucleotides that make up the dna . dna can be cut , spliced , and otherwise manipulated using &# 34 ; restriction enzymes &# 34 ; that cut dna at certain known sites and dna polymerases that join dna . such techniques are well known to those in the art , as set forth in texts such as sambrook , et al ., molecular cloning : a laboratory manual , 2nd ed . cold spring harbor laboratory press ( 1985 ). dna of a specific size and sequence can then be inserted into a &# 34 ; replicon &# 34 ;, any genetic element , such as a plasmid , cosmid , or virus , that is capable of replication under its own control . a &# 34 ; recombinant vector &# 34 ; or &# 34 ; expression vector &# 34 ; is a replicon into which a dna segment is inserted so as to allow for expression of the dna , i . e ., production of the protein encoded by the dna . expression vectors may be constructed in the laboratory , obtained from other laboratories , or purchased from commercial sources . expression vectors that would be suitable for use in this invention include pece and pmamneo . the recombinant vector ( known by various terms in the art ) may be introduced into a host by a process generically known as &# 34 ; transformation &# 34 ;. transformation means the transfer of an exogenous dna segment by a number of methods , including infection , direct uptake , transduction , f - mating , microinjection , or electroporation into a host cell . host cells , known variously as recombinant host cells , cells , and cell culture , include microorganisms , insect cells , and mammalian cells . as those in the art recognize , the expression of the dna segment by the host cell requires the regulatory sequences . the regulatory sequences vary according to the host cell employed , but include , for example , in prokaryotes , a promoter , ribosomal binding site , and / or a transcription termination site . in eukaryotes , such regulatory sequences include a promoter and / or a transcription termination site . the dna may be expressed as a polypeptide of any length such as peptides , oligopeptides , and proteins . polypeptides also include translational modifications such as glycosylations , acetylations , phosphoralations , and the like . having provided this background information , we now describe preferred aspects of the invention . we had previously described the cloning of a partial cdna isolated from a human kidney cortex library , clone hkc - 3 , that had 94 % amino acid identity to the previously characterized rabbit nhe3 na + / h + exchanger isoform ( 26 ). in the work underlying this invention , we have determined that hkc - 3 represents a cdna fragment of a functioning human nhe3 na + / h + exchanger isoform . to extend the human cdna beyond that of hkc3 , we reprobed the human kidney cortex library using hkc3 as a probe . we identified an additional nhe3 clone , designated hkc5 , which overlaps with clone hkc3 and contains the entire 3 &# 39 ; coding and noncoding regions of human nhe3 . neither , however , provided the 5 &# 39 ; coding region . we ultimately obtained that region using reverse transcription / polymerase chain reaction ( rt - pcr ) of human kidney rna , based on a reverse primer b3 , derived from hkc3 , and a forward primer , b8 , a degenerate primer derived from the 5 &# 39 ; region of both rabbit and rat nhe3 ( fig2 ). the rt - pcr amplification yielded clone 23 - 3 which contains the sought - after 5 &# 39 ; coding sequence of human nhe3 . fig1 provides a schematic representation of the human nhe3 composite while fig3 a - 3b provides the nucleotide sequence of the human nhe3 composite cdna and deduced amino acid sequence . the deduced amino acid sequence , based on the identity of the three - nucleotide codon , of human nhe3 is 834 residues and the calculated relative molecular weight is 92 , 906 . fig4 a - 4b shows the alignment of the deduced amino acid sequences of the three cloned nhe3 homologues . human nhe3 is 89 % identical at the amino acid level to rat nhe3 and 88 % identical to rabbit nhe3 . the human nhe3 composite cdna was stably transfected into nhe deficient cell line , ps120 , a nhe deficient derivative of the chinese hamster lung fibroblast cell line ccl39 by capo 4 precipitation . transfection allowed these cells to perform na + / h + exchange , assessed by na + dependent alkalinization and measured by the fluorescence of the acetoxymethyl ester of 2 &# 39 ;, 7 &# 39 ;- bis ( 2 - carboxyethyl )- 5 -( and - 6 ) carboxyfluorescein ( bcecf ). human brush border epithelial na + / h + exchange has been characterized as being much less sensitive to inhibition by amiloride and its 5 - amino - substituted analogues than basolateral and nonepithelial membrane na + / h + exchangers ( 10 , 24 , 36 ). thus , we assessed the sensitivity of human nhe3 to inhibition by amiloride and ethylisopropylamiloride ( eipa ) by 22 na + uptake studies ( fig6 ). our studies demonstrated that the sensitivity of human nhe3 is in the range of that of rabbit and rat nhe3 ( table 1 ) ( 19 , 29 ): table i______________________________________effect of amiloride and ethylisopropylamilorideon human , rabbit and rat nhe3 inhibition constants ( ic . sub . 50 in μm ) amiloride ethylisopropylamiloride______________________________________human nhe3 49 6 . 6rat nhe3 100 2 . 4rabbit nhe3 39 8 . 0______________________________________ in regards to amiloride and eipa sensitivity , we note that the amino acid sequence of fffyl in putative msd 4 , previously shown by counillon et al . and yun et al . to be a critical region in the determination of nhe amiloride and eipa sensitivity ( 7 , 35 ), is entirely conserved among all three nhe3 homologues . also similar to rabbit and rat nhe3 ( 14 , 19 , 29 ), we found that human nhe3 was activated by fgf , an activator of a receptor tyrosine kinase , and was inhibited by pma , an activator of protein kinase c ( fig7 a - 7b ). in the region c - terminal of msd 10 , which is essential for protein kinase regulation ( 5 , 32 ), there are 8 potential protein kinase c consensus sequences conserved among all three cloned na + / h + exchangers and a single conserved tyrosine kinase site at human nhe3 amino acid 546 ( fig4 a - 4b ). nonetheless , there was no effect of 8 - bromo - camp on human nhe3 / ps120 cells , in spite of the presence of putative camp dependent protein kinase consensus sequences in the c - terminus . this was not surprising as none of the cloned mammalian na + / h + exchangers transfected into ps120 cells have been shown to be affected by addition of camp ( 28 ), although the cloned trout na + / h + exchanger ( β - nhe ) is regulated by camp in ps120 cells ( 5 ). across species , the overall sensitivity of nhe3 to amiloride inhibition and its regulation by second messengers is conserved . the relative amiloride resistance of human nhe3 , its inhibition by pma , and its expression being greatest in the kidney and small intestine is consistent with human nhe3 being the characteristic brush border na + / h + exchanger of these tissues . indeed , recent western analysis and immunohistochemical studies of human ileum and ascending colon , stained with antibody made against the rabbit nhe3 c - terminus , have confirmed that human nhe3 is present on the brush border membranes but not the basolateral membranes of human ileal villus and ascending colonic surface na + absorbing epithelial cells ( 9 ). nhe3 is therefore a likely candidate to be the na + / h + exchanger isoform altered in diseases of the kidney and small intestine in which brush border na + / h + exchange activity is abnormal . in this regard , we note that the literature reports that there is increased na + / h + exchange in the brush border of intestinal cells of patients with cystic fibrosis and that this likely contributes to the manifestations of the disease with desiccated luminal contents ( 37 ). a potential therapy for cystic fibrosis may be the inhibition of brush border na + / h + exchange . if such therapy is to succeed , drugs that inhibit brush border na + / h + exchange must be identified and tested . in one embodiment , a cell stably transfected with human nhe3 cdna could be used to screen such drugs . in a preferred embodiment , the cell is ps120 . given the present disclosure , those of ordinary skill in this art could set up a screen to assess the affect of drugs on brush border na + / h + exchangers . for example , one could measure na + / h + exchanger activity by assessing na + dependent alkalinization using fluorescence measurement with bcecf as set forth in the methods section . alternatively , one could measure 22 na + uptake , also as set forth in the methods section . such screens may also be used for assessing drugs for the treatment of diarrhea . in virtually all diarrheal diseases , there is inhibition of brush border na + / h + exchange in the small bowel or colon ( 38 ). accordingly , drugs that stimulate nhe3 may well be useful for the treatment of acute and chronic diarrhea , and the screens described above may be used to assess a drug &# 39 ; s ability to stimulate nhe3 . this methodology , in summary , could be used as a screen to assess the affect of drugs for conditions where either nhe3 may be malfunctioning and / or the modification of nhe3 &# 39 ; s native na + / h + exchange activity may have a potential therapeutic benefit . human nhe3 , like rabbit nhe1 , rabbit nhe2 and rabbit nhe3 , exhibited evidence of a h + modifier site , with hill coefficients of ≅ 2 ( 14 ). as we have noted previously , this contradicts some vesicle transport studies claiming that ileal brush border and basolateral , and colonic brush border membranes na + / h + exchangers have non - allosteric , michaelis - menten relationships between h + ! concentration and na + / h + exchange rate ( 27 ). the affinity of human nhe3 for h + ( k &# 39 ;) was likewise similar to that reported for rabbit nhe2 and nhe3 ( 14 ). unlike nhe3 in the rat and rabbit , we found that human nhe3 message is expressed in a variety of both epithelial and nonepithelial tissues . nhe3 in the rat and rabbit has not been detected in any tissues outside the kidney and the gastrointestinal tract , with the exception of one recent study by bookstein , et al . reporting faint message detection in the rat brain ( 3 , 20 , 26 ). nhe3 expression has not been examined in the rat or rabbit ovary , prostate , thymus , leukocyte , or placenta ( 20 , 26 ). orlowski et al . detected no nhe3 message in the rat testes or spleen , in contrast to our finding of relatively abundant nhe3 message in the human testes , and relatively low message in the human spleen . in the human , therefore , nhe3 most likely has significant roles in other tissues , for which the transepithelial absorption of na + is not thought of as a primary physiologic function . the relative degree of expression of human nhe3 in kidney and gut tissues is similar to that found for the rabbit ( 26 ), although human nhe3 expression in the colon was much less than in the small intestine whereas rabbit nhe3 expression in the ascending colon was equal to that found in the ileum . some of these differences may be attributed to sampling differences , as the human colon mrna studied was derived from both the ascending and transverse colon . interestingly , message expression of human nhe3 for the kidney and gut is opposite that found in the rat , in which two studies report message expression in the following order : colon & gt ; small intestine & gt ; kidney ( 3 , 20 ). it is noteworthy that in the human , nhe3 message of two sizes ( 6 . 7 and 8 . 9 kb ) is expressed nearly equivalently in all tissues except the kidney and gut . in these latter two organs , expression was almost completely limited to the 6 . 7 kb band . we provide the following specific methods that may be used in the practice of the claimed invention . it is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention as claimed . in conducting the experiments described in the examples below , we used the following methods : the human nhe3 partial cdna clone , hkc3 , was used to rescreen , under conditions of high stringency ( hybridized at 42 ° c . in 50 % formamide , 4 × ssc , 5 × denhardt , 1 % sodium dodecyl sulfate ( sds ) and washed at 62 ° c . in 0 . 15 × ssc and 0 . 1 % sds ) the same human kidney cortex λgt10 cdna library from which it was isolated ( obtained from dr . g . i . bell , the university of chicago ). six positive clones were identified , and their cdna inserts were subcloned into plasmid pbluescript ii ks ( stratagene ) and sequenced on both ends . one of these clones , hkc5 , was further characterized ( fig1 ). to obtain 5 &# 39 ; human nhe3 sequence , 1 μg of human kidney rna , obtained from dr . pat wilson ( the johns hopkins univ . ), was reverse transcribed ( rt ), using random primers into cdna using the superscript preamplification system for first strand cdna synthesis kit ( gibco ) according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s recommendations . 2 μl of rt product was used as template in a 50 μl polymerase chain reaction ( pcr ) ( 39 ) containing ( final amounts / concentrations ) 10 × pcr ii buffer ( 5 μl ), deoxynucleotides ( 300 μm ), formamide ( 3 %), taq polymerase ( perkin elmer cetus ) ( 2 u ), reverse hkc3 primer b3 ( 5 &# 39 ;- gcgaattccacacggtacccacgac - 3 &# 39 ;) ( 30 pmol ) seq id no : 1 and degenerate nhe3 minicistron forward primer b8 5 &# 39 ;- atgcg ( g / a / t / c ) gt cgg ( g / a / t / c ) ( c / t ) cc ( c / t ) gg ( c / a ) gc tgagc - 3 &# 39 ; ( 30 pmol ) seq id no : 2 . b8 was based on the conserved minicistrons of rabbit and rat nhe3 ( fig2 ) ( 20 , 26 ). amplification was performed for 30 cycles : 94 ° c . ( 75 s ), 59 ° c . ( 45 s ), and 72 ° c . ( 2 min ). pcr product was separated on a 1 . 4 % agarose gel and blotted onto nylon filters ( hybond ). filters were probed under high stringency conditions with a rabbit 5 &# 39 ; nhe3 partial cdna , clone rai1 ( 26 ), to analyze for homologous 5 &# 39 ; human nhe3 pcr product . hybridizing rt - pcr clone 23 - 3 was subcloned into plasmid pcr ii using the ta cloning kit ( invitrogen ) and sequenced ( fig1 ). sequencing of the coding region of human nhe3 cdna clones was performed on both strands by sanger &# 39 ; s dideoxy termination procedure using the sequenase kit ( usb corp ) ( 22 ). exoiii / mung bean nuclease digestion was used to obtain progressive unidirectional deletion clones ( 26 ). two regions of high gc content containing compression artifact ( rt - pcr clone 23 - 3 and between nucleotides 2333 to 2571 ) were also sequenced using internal primers and the fluorescent dideoxy terminator method of cycle sequencing on an applied biosystems ( foster city , calif .) 373a automated dna sequencer , following abi protocols at the dna analysis facility of johns hopkins university ( 17 , 25 ). construction of a full length human nhe3 na +/ h + exchanger composite cdna . three overlapping clones , rt - pcr clone 23 - 3 and the human kidney cortex cdna clones hkc3 and hkc5 , produced the entire coding sequence of human nhe3 ( fig1 ). a 554 bp overlapping human nhe3 fragment ( rt - pcr clone 25 - 1 ) was amplified to facilitate joining hkc3 and hkc5 , and thereby enable construction of a human nhe3 expression construct : human kidney rna was reverse transcribed as above and pcr amplification , using standard techniques , was performed using human nhe3 specific primers , forward primer b13 ( 5 &# 39 ;- catctggacctggaacacg - 3 &# 39 ;) seq id no : 3 and reverse primer b14 ( 5 - cgtagctgatggcatccttc - 3 &# 39 ;) seq id no : 4 . the identity of rt - pcr clone 25 - 1 was confirmed by sequencing . to create a composite nhe3 full - length coding cdna , clones 25 - 1 , hkc5 , hkc - 3 and 23 - 3 were subcloned into a puc 19 vector using the restriction sites as noted in fig1 and standard restriction digestion and ligation techniques . the nhe3 composite cdna construct contained 10 bp of 5 &# 39 ; untranslated nhe3 cdna , the entire coding region of human nhe - 3 and 2 . 2 kb of 3 &# 39 ; untranslated cdna sequence ( fig1 human nhe3 expression construct ). this was subcloned directionally into the ecori / xbai sites of the eukaryotic expression vector pece ( 35 ) to create human nhe3 expression plasmid , peh3 . stable expression of the human nhe3 composite cdna in na + / h + exchange deficient fibroblasts . the peh3 construct was stably cotransfected with psv2neo ( clontech ) into the na + / h + exchanger deficient cell line ps120 , a na + / h + exchanger deficient derivative of the chinese hamster lung fibroblast cell line ccl39 , by the method of capo 4 precipitation as described previously ( 23 ). transfected cells ( hnhe3 / ps120 cells ) were selected by both g418 resistance and the acid loading technique ( 23 , 30 ). measurement of na + / h + exchange activity : fluorescence measurement with bcecf . hnhe3 / ps120 cells were grown to 70 - 80 % confluency on glass coverslips , serum starved overnight to arrest growth , washed with na + medium ( containing in mm : 130 nacl , 5 kcl , 2 cacl 2 , 1 mgso 4 , 1 napo 4 , 25 glucose , 20 hepes , ph 7 . 4 ) and loaded with the acetoxymethyl ester of 2 &# 39 ;, 7 &# 39 ;- bis ( 2 - carboxyethyl ) 5 -( and - 6 ) carboxyfluorescein ( bcecf ) as previously discussed ( 31 ). cells were washed with tma medium ( containing in mm : 130 tetramethylammonium - c1 , 5 kcl , 2 cacl 2 1 mgso 4 , 1 tma - p0 4 , 25 glucose , 20 hepes , ph 7 . 4 ), mounted in a cuvette , and perfused at 37 ° c . cells were acidified by perfusing with 30 mm nh 4 cl prepulse followed by removal of nh 4 cl with tma medium . the cuvette was then perfused with na + medium . na + dependent alkalinization , which was amiloride sensitive , as determined by bcecf fluorescence , was measured in an slm spectrofluorometer as described ( 31 ). na + / h + exchange was determined by multiplying the initial rate of na + dependent alkalinization by intracellular buffering capacity , as described . to determine the hill coefficient n and the apparent h + affinity constant k &# 39 ;, a kinetic measure of h + exchange ( 1 ), we obtained a plot of intracellular h +! concentration versus rate of proton efflux by calculating the first - order derivative of the na + - dependent ph recovery curve x intracellular buffering capacity , as previously described ( 14 ). data points generated from 8 coverslips were recorded at 3 s intervals during the rapid phase of ph recovery , with longer ( 15 s ) intervals between data points as the rate of alkalinization slowed . data were analyzed using a nonlinear regression data analysis program ( enzfitter , biosoft corp .). stably transfected hnhe3 / ps 120 cells were grown to near confluency in 24 - well plates . the cells were serum - starved for 24 hours to arrest growth . 22 na + uptake ( 1 mm ) was measured during the linear phase of uptake in the presence of 1 mm ouabain and various concentrations of potential inhibitors amiloride or ethylisopropylamiloride ( eipa ) following acidification with nh 4 cl prepulse , as detailed previously ( 30 ). commercially available human northern blots , human mtn and human mtn ii ( clontech ), each containing poly ( a ) + rna , 1 μg per lane , from 8 different human tissue types , were probed with the 953 bp 5 &# 39 ; smai fragment of clone hkc5 ( see fig1 ) encoding amino acids 462 through 775 , according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s instructions for high stringency probing . 2 × 10 6 cpm of randomly primed , 32 p - labelled probe was added to each ml of hybridization solution . blots were analyzed by autoradiography using kodak xar film . to extend the human nhe3 cdna beyond that of the previously reported human nhe3 partial cdna clone , hkc3 , we reprobed the human kidney cortex library using hkc3 as a probe and identified an additional nhe3 clone , hkc5 ( fig1 ). clone hkc5 overlapped with clone hkc3 and contained the entire 3 &# 39 ; coding and noncoding region of human nhe3 , including the poly ( a ) + tail . it has been surprisingly found that , despite extensive efforts to utilize colony hybridization library screening of the same lamda gt10 human kidney from which hkc3 was isolated , we were unable to isolate the complete 5 &# 39 ; coding nucleotides of the nhe3 full length cdna . the most 5 &# 39 ; clone isolated was hkc - 10 , which encoded human nhe3 cdna 182 nucleotides 5 &# 39 ; of clone hkc3 , at putative membrane spanning domain 2 as based on homology with the rabbit nhe3 . interestingly , the most 5 &# 39 ; nucleotide sequence of clone hkc - 10 was at a location homologous to the most 5 &# 39 ; nucleotides of exon 2 of human nhe1 . it is known that a 41 . 5 kb intron separates exons 1 and 2 in human nhe1 ( 44 ). we have very recently obtained a human nhe3 genomic dna cosmid clone , clone 84c11 , and have found that , as in nhe1 , an intron / exon boundary is likewise present in nhe3 immediately 5 &# 39 ; to clone hkc - 10 . furthermore , this cosmid clone does not contain human nhe3 putative exon 1 , suggesting that the human nhe3 exon 1 is most likely separated from exon 2 by a relatively large intron , as found in nhe1 . it may be that a large intron segment between exons 1 and 2 may have made obtaining nhe3 cdna clones encoding exon 1 difficult . additionally , as we later determined , there ultimately was found to be a segment in the 5 &# 39 ; coding region of nhe3 , between coding nucleotides 12 to 107 ( fig3 a - 3b ) which was 87 % gc rich . as noted below , this high gc rich region also was found to make the molecular cloning and sequencing of the 5 &# 39 ; region of nhe3 difficult , and required a modification of the usual methodology . we also screened three cdna libraries , this same human kidney cortex lamda gt10 library and both human jejunal lamda gt11 and a human fetal kidney lamda gt10 libraries , by a polymerase chain reaction method of library screening using a modification of the method described by tung et al . and using nhe3 specific antisense primers derived from hkc3 and hkc - 10 sequence ( 43 ). additional 5 &# 39 ; human nhe3 clones were identified from these other libraries but no clones contained the entire remaining 5 &# 39 ; coding nucleotides of nhe3 . therefore , after screening three libraries that had nhe3 5 &# 39 ; clones but not the entire 5 &# 39 ; coding segment , we embarked on a new method to clone this region . a degenerate forward primer b8 , was developed from the sequences encoding minicistrons found in the 5 &# 39 ; untranslated regions of both rabbit and rat nhe3 ( fig2 ; nucleotide identity is designated by &# 34 ;&# 34 ;). ( 20 , 26 ). we ultimately obtained the remaining 5 &# 39 ; coding region , by reverse transcription / polymerase chain reaction ( rt - pcr ) of human kidney rna , based on a reverse primer b3 , derived from hkc3 , and the forward primer b8 . the rt - pcr amplification yielded a 500 bp pcr product , clone 23 - 3 , that had high homology with the 5 &# 39 ; coding region of rabbit nhe3 . its sequence contained the remaining 5 &# 39 ; coding sequences of human nhe3 and ten 5 &# 39 ; noncoding nucleotides , between the minicistron primer sequence and the putative atg start site . due to the high gc rich segment in this region as noted above ( the region from bp 12 to 107 has 87 % gc content ), the polymerase chain reaction amplification of this region required using 3 % formamide as a denaturant . similarly , this region could not be sequenced correctly using sanger &# 39 ; s dideoxy termination procedure ( 22 ). rather , it required amplifying the region using the polymerase chain reaction with addition of 200 μm 7 - dcaza - dgtp ( to weaken the gc hydrogen bonds that interfere with polymerization fidelity ) and 100 μm dgtp in place of 300 μm dgtp nucleotide alone , then electroeluting the amplified pcr product . the electroeluted pcr product was directly sequencing by using internal primers and the fluorescent dideoxy terminator method of cycle sequencing on an applied biosystems ( foster city , calif .) 373a automated dna sequencer , following abi protocols at the dna analysis facility of johns hopkins university ( 17 , 25 ). fig1 shows a schematic diagram of the human nhe3 composite cdna . the open reading frame is represented by the hatched area and the noncoding regions by the open bars . nucleotide numbers are indicated on the top of the clones . primers ( b3 , b8 , b13 , and b14 ) used to amplify nhe3 rt - pcr clones are represented by shaded bars . each primer &# 39 ; s name is listed below and separated by an arrow from its corresponding bar . restriction enzyme sites used in constructing a composite human nhe3 cdna or used in constructing a human nhe3 cdna probe ( i . e . smai ) are indicated by the vertical lines intersecting the clones . the human nhe3 cdna construct used in the expression studies is represented by the solid horizontal bar (&# 34 ; human nhe3 expression construct &# 34 ;). the partial cdna clones used to produce this construct are designated underneath this bar . they are separated by vertical lines representing the points of their restriction digestion and ligation . the nucleotide and amino acid sequences of human nhe3 are presented in fig3 a - 3b . nucleotides are numbered at the right of the sequence with respect to their putative translation initiation site . amino acids are numbered at the left of the sequence and are represented by their single letter abbreviations . &# 34 ;&# 34 ; represents an in - frame stop codon . this nucleotide sequence shares 82 % identity with rat nhe3 and 81 % identity with rabbit nhe3 ( 20 , 26 ). the largest open reading frame , a series of codons coding for amino acids which is translatable into a protein , is 2502 bp , 9 bp larger than that of rat nhe3 and 6 bp larger than that of rabbit nhe3 . the initiation codon is in fair agreement with kozak &# 39 ; s consensus sequence , having a g at bp - 3 but a t at bp + 4 ( 13 ). the next in - frame initiation codon is at msd 4 . based on the size of clone hkc5 , the 3 &# 39 ; untranslated region of nhe3 is roughly 3 kb , of which the most 5 - prime 72 bp and the 3 &# 39 ; polyadenylation sequence have been determined . there was 74 % identity between the first 39 bp 3 &# 39 ; untranslated nucleotides of human and rat nhe3 . homology 3 &# 39 ; of this region between human and rat nhe3 is insignificant . only the first 38 bp 3 &# 39 ; noncoding nucleotides of rabbit nhe3 have been identified ( 26 ); these have 92 % identity with human nhe3 . the deduced amino acid sequence , based on the identity of the three - nucleotide codon , of human nhe3 is 834 residues . the calculated relative molecular weight is 92 , 906 . fig4 a - 4b shows the alignment of the deduced amino acid sequence of the three cloned nhe3 homologues . rat nhe3 sequence was obtained from orlowski et al . and rabbit nhe3 from tse et al . ( 20 , 26 ). amino acids are indicated by their single letter abbreviation . membrane spanning domains are overlined ( m1 - m10 , m5a , and m5b ) and were used as previously determined for rabbit nhe3 ( 26 ). eight conserved putative protein kinase c phosphorylation consensus sequences are indicated by &# 34 ;#&# 34 ; overlying the serine or threonine residue . a single conserved tyrosine kinase phosphorylation consensus sequence is indicated by &# 34 ;+&# 34 ;. identical amino acids are indicated by &# 34 ;*&# 34 ;, and &# 34 ;.&# 34 ; indicates similarity . amino acid numbers are shown on the right . the three cloned nhe3 homologues are overall 82 % identical ; human nhe3 is 89 % identical at the amino acid level to rat nhe3 and 88 % identical to rabbit nhe3 . as found for the nhe1 homologues ( 20 , 23 , 31 ), amino acid homology across species for nhe3 is greatest in the region between msd 2 - 10 ; human nhe3 and rat nhe3 are 94 % identical in this region as is human nhe3 and rabbit nhe3 . the nhe3 proteins , again like the nhe1 proteins , diverge most near their n - termini ; human and rabbit nhe3 identity is 62 % n - terminal of msd 2 , and human and rat nhe3 identity is 49 %. the cytoplasmic tails of the nhe3 proteins are highly conserved , 88 % identity for human and rabbit nhe3 and 89 % identity for human and rat nhe3 . a single n - linked glycosylation consensus sequence is present at human nhe3 amino acid 326 , and is conserved among all mammalian na + / h + exchanger isoforms ( 28 ). functional characterization of human nhe3 cdna in na + / h + exchanger deficient fibroblasts to characterize the kinetic properties of human nhe3 , we created a composite human nhe3 cdna from the four human nhe3 partial cdna clones diagrammed in fig1 . this composite cdna contained the minicistron primer b8 sequence at its 5 &# 39 ; most end , the 10 intervening 5 &# 39 ; untranslated nucleotides , the entire coding sequence and 2 . 2 kb of the 2 . 9 kb 3 &# 39 ; untranslated sequence . this cdna was subcloned into the expression vector pece , then stably transfected into the na + / h + exchanger deficient cell line ps120 . the stably transfected human nhe3 / ps120 cells ( hnhe3 / ps120 ), following acidification , showed rapid alkalinization upon addition of 130 mm na + ( fig5 a ). fig5 a sets forth a composite tracing of two representative experiments demonstrating ph i recovery of ps120 cells stably transfected with the human nhe3 expression vector peh3 . hnhe3 / ps120 cells loaded with bcecf were acidified by nh 4 cl prepulse . in the presence of 130 mm na + medium ( curve a ), but not 130 mm tia medium , cells were able to recover to a steady - state ph i . addition of 1 mm amiloride in the presence of 130 mm na + medium inhibits this recovery ( curve b ), proving that cloned human nhe3 is an amiloride inhibitable na + / h + exchanger . fig5 b demonstrates that the na + / h + exchange activity of hnhe3 / ps120 cells with respect to intracellular h + ! concentration fits a sigmoidal rather than hyperbolic curve , demonstrating cooperative allosteric kinetics : hill coefficient ( n app ) was 2 . 0 and the apparent h + affinity constant k &# 39 ; was 0 . 164 μm . specifically , we conducted a kinetic analysis of hnhe3 / ps120 cells , expressed as h + efflux rate , as a function of intracellular h + ! concentration . hnhe3 / ps120 cells were plated on eight glass coverslips and serum starved overnight . initial rates of ph i recovery were obtained by calculating the first - order derivative of eight ph i recovery traces , a single trace as shown in fig5 a . na + / h + exchange rates ( μm h + per s )(□) were determined as described in methods . the line in the plot was generated by the computer program using the hill equation and was the best fit with the data . as noted above , the hill coefficient ( n app ) was 2 . 0 ; the apparent h + affinity constant k &# 39 ; was 0 . 164 μm and v max was 2400 μm / sec . human brush border epithelial na + / h + exchange has been characterized as being much less sensitive to inhibition by amiloride and its 5 - amino - substituted analogues than basolateral and nonepithelial membrane na + / h + exchangers ( 10 , 24 , 36 ). therefore we determined the quantitative sensitivity of hnhe3 / ps120 cells to inhibition by amiloride and eipa by 22 na + uptake studies . the concentration dependence for amiloride and eipa inhibition of the initial rate of 22 na + uptake ( 1 mm ) into acid loaded hnhe3 / ps120 cells was determined . three independent experiments were performed . the mean ic 50 values for amiloride and eipa were 49 . 0 μm and 6 . 6 μm , respectively . fig6 provides curves are from a representative experiment . each point represents the mean percent of control 22 na + uptake of duplicate experiments for each concentration of inhibitor . the curves are nonlinear least squares fits of the data assuming a single binding site for the inhibition ( graphpad software , inc ., san diego , calif .). the ic 50 values for these representative curves were calculated to be 59 and 8 . 8 μm for amiloride and eipa , respectively . to determine second messenger regulation of human nhe3 , we studied the effects of fibroblast growth factor ( fgf ), the camp analogue 8 - bromo - camp , and phorbol 12 - myristate 13 - acetate ( pma ). serum starved hnhe3 / ps120 cells were acidified by a nh 4 cl prepulse and allowed to recover in 130 mm na + medium until steady - state ph i was obtained . either fgf ( 10 ng / ml ), 8 - bromo - camp ( 0 . 5 mm ) or pma ( 1 . 0 μm ) was then added at the times indicated in fig7 a - 7b . in comparison to controls , addition of fgf caused activation of the hnhe3 / ps120 cells , which reached a new steady state after an average of 5 min ( fig7 a ); δph i was + 0 . 051 ± 0 . 016 following addition of fgf versus - 0 . 006 ± 0 . 012 for controls followed over a similar time period ( p & lt ; 0 . 035 , n = 4 ). addition of 8 - bromo - camp at steady state had no measurable effect on na + / h + exchange activity ( n = 2 ). pma , in contrast , resulted in a fall of the ph i from its steady - state value , reaching a new steady state after an average of less than 2 min : δph i was - 0 . 052 ± 0 . 006 ( p & lt ; 0 . 001 , n = 5 ) ( fig7 b ). this signifies inhibition of the transfected na + / h + exchanger . we have previously demonstrated that pma does not cause acidification in ps120 cells outside of its inhibition of the na + / h + exchanger ( 29 ). to determine the size of the human nhe3 message and to examine its expression in a variety of human tissues , we probed northern blots of multiple human tissues ( commercially prepared human northern blots , human mtn and human mtn ii , clontech ) with the 935 bp 5 &# 39 ; smai fragment of clone hkc5 ( fig8 ). each lane contained 1 μg of poly ( a ) + rna from the indicated tissues . both blots ( left panel = mtn blot , right panel = mtn blot ii ) were probed in a single solution under high stringency conditions using the human nhe3 specific 32 p probe . the blots were washed together under high stringency conditions . autoradiograms were exposed for two different time periods : a , 16 h ; b , 7 days . rna size standards ( in kilobases ) are shown on the right of the figures . we used the cytoplasmic domain probe because homology in this region among nhe isoforms is low ( 47 % nucleotide identity with nhe2 , 41 % with nhe1 ), minimizing possible cross hybridization with other nhe isoforms . furthermore , we confirmed that this nhe3 probe did not hybridize to nhe1 or nhe2 by southern blotting under high stringency hybridization conditions ( data not shown ). at 16 h exposure of the autoradiogram ( fig8 panel a ), a strong 6 . 7 kb band was detected in human kidney rna , and a weaker 6 . 7 kb band was detected in the small intestine rna , with two very weak bands detected in testes rna , corresponding to 6 . 7 and 8 . 9 kb . following a 7 day exposure , bands were detected in rna from all tissues from the mtn ii blot , and two additional tissues ( brain and placenta ) in the mtn blot ( fig8 panel b ). the order of signal intensity for the various tissues was : kidney & gt ;& gt ; small intestine & gt ;& gt ; testes & gt ; ovary & gt ; colon = prostate & gt ; thymus & gt ; peripheral leukocyte = brain & gt ; spleen & gt ; placenta , and including endothelial cells . no message was detected in the heart , lung , liver , skeletal muscle , or pancreas . the bands in the kidney , small intestine and colon appeared to be made up almost entirely of the 6 . 7 kb size , whereas the 8 . 9 kb band seen in the other tissues were nearly as intense as the 6 . 7 kb band . as nhe3 message in the rabbit and rat has only been detected in kidney , stomach , some intestinal tissues and brain ( 3 , 20 , 26 ), the finding that human nhe3 was present in these other tissues was unexpected . consequently , we probed a newly obtained second mtn ii blot , and the results from the first mtn ii blot were confirmed . furthermore , both mtn ii blots were stripped and reprobed with a mouse protamine - 1 cdna ( atcc , rockville , md .) ( 33 ). the only hybridization signal present was that of the testicular specific 0 . 6 kb human protamine - 1 message ( 8 ), seen only in the testes lanes , thus verifying the integrity and specificity of the mtn ii blots &# 39 ; testes samples ( results not shown ). 1 . aronson , p . s . mechanisms of active h + secretion in the proximal tubule . am . j . physiol . 245 : f647 - f659 , 1983 . 2 . biemesderfer , d ., j . pizzonia , a . abu - alfa , m . exner , r . reilly , p . igarashi , and p . s . aronson . nhe3 : a na + / h + exchanger isoform of renal brush border . am . j . physiol . f736 - f742 , 1993 . 3 . bookstein , c ., a . m . depaoli , y . xie , p . niu , m . w . musch , m . c . rao , and e . b . chang . na + / h + exchangers , nhe - 1 and nhe - 3 , of rat intestine : expression and localization . j . clin . invest . 93 : 106 - 113 , 1994 . 4 . booth , i . w ., g . stange , h . murer , t . r . fenton , and p . j . milla . defective jejunal brush - border na + / h + exchange : a cause of congenital secretory diarrhoea . lancet i : 1066 - 1069 , 1985 . 5 . borgese , f ., c . sardet , m . cappadoro , j . pouyssegur , and r . motais . cloning and expressing a camp - activated na + / h + exchanger : evidence that the cytopiasmic domain mediates hormonal regulation . proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 89 : 6765 - 6769 , 1992 . 6 . brant , s . r ., m . bernstein , j . j . wasmuth , b . w . taylor , j . d . mcpherson , x . li , s . walker , j . pouyssegur , m . donowitz , c . m . tse , and e . w . jabs . physical and genetic mapping of a human apical epithelial na + / h + exchanger ( nhe3 ) isoform to chromosome 5p15 . 3 . genomics 15 : 668 - 672 , 1993 . 7 . counillon , l ., a . franchi , j . pouyssegur . a point mutation of the na + / h + exchanger gene ( nhe - 1 ) and amplification of the mutated allele confer amiloride - resistance upon chronic acidosis . proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 90 : 4508 - 4512 , 1993 . 8 . domenjoud , l ., h . kremling , p . burfeind , w . m . maier , and w . engel . on the expression of protamine genes in the testis of man and other mammals . andrologia 23 : 333 - 337 , 1991 . 9 . hoogerwerf , w . a ., c . yun , s . levine , j . l . m . montgomery , a . j . lazenby , c . m . tse and m . donowitz . message distribution of three na / h + exchangers along the rabbit ileal crypt - villus axis and demonstration that an epithelial isoform , nhe2 , is present in ileal brush border membrane . gastroenterology 106 : a239 ( abstract ), 1994 . 10 . kleinman , j . g ., j . m . harig , j . a . barry , k . ramaswamy . na + and h + transport in human jejunal brush - border membrane vesicles . am . j . physiol . 255 : g206 - g211 , 1988 . 11 . knickelbein , r . g ., p . s . aronson , w . atherton , and j . w . dobbins . na and cl transport across rabbit ileal brush border . i . evidence for na / h exchange . am . j . physiol . 245 : g504 - g510 , 1983 . 12 . knickelbein , r . g ., p . s . aronson , j . seifter , c . m . schron and j . w . dobbins . na and cl transport across rabbit ileal brush border . ii . demonstration of cl / hco 3 exchange and mechanism for coupling . am . j . physiol . 249 : g236 - g249 , 1985 . 13 . kozak , m . an analysis of 5 &# 39 ;- noncoding sequences from 699 vertebrate messenger rnas . nucleic acids res . 15 : 8125 - 8148 , 1987 . 14 . levine , s ., m . montrose , c . m . tse , and m . donowitz . kinetics and regulation of three cloned mammalian na + / h + exchangers stably expressed in a fibroblast cell line . j . biol . chem . 268 : 25527 - 25535 , 1993 . 15 . lifton , r . p ., c . sardet , j . pouyssegur , and j . m . lalouel . cloning of the human genomic amiloride - sensitive na + / h + antiporter gene , identification of genetic polymorphisms , and localization on the genetic map of chromosome 1p . genomics 7 : 131 - 135 , 1990 . 16 . mahnensmith , r . l . and p . s . aronson . the plasma membrane sodium - hydrogen exchanger and its role in physiological and pathophysiological processes . circ . res . 56 : 773 - 788 , 1985 . 17 . mccombie , w . r ., c . heiner , j . m . kelly , m . g . fitzgerald , and j . d . gocayne . rapid and reliable fluorescent cycle sequencing of double stranded templates . dna sequence 2 : 289 - 296 , 1992 . 18 . morduchowicz , g . a ., d . sheikh - hamad , o . d . jo , e . p . nord , d . b . lee , and n . yanagawa . increased na + / h + antiport activity in the renal brush border membrane of shr . kidney int . 36 : 576 - 581 , 1989 . 19 . orlowski , j . heterologous expression and functional properties of amiloride high affinity ( nhe3 ) and low affinity ( nhe3 ) isoforms of the rat na + / h + exchanger . j . biol . chem . 268 : 16369 - 16377 , 1993 . 20 . orlowski , j ., r . a . kandasamy , and g . e . shull . molecular cloning of putative members of the na + / h + exchanger gene family . j . biol . chem . 267 : 9331 - 9339 , 1992 . 21 . rood , r . p . and m . donowitz . regulation of small intestinal na + absorption by protein kinases ; implications for therapy of diarrheal diseases . viewpoints on digestive disease 22 : 1 - 6 , 1990 . 22 . sanger , f ., s . nicklen , and a . r . coulson : dna sequencing with chain - termination inhibitors . proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 74 : 5463 - 5467 , 1977 . 23 . sardet , c ., l . counillon , a . franchi , and j . pouyssegur . molecular cloning , primary structure and expression of the human growth factor - activatable na + / h + antiporter . cell 56 : 271 - 280 , 1989 . 24 . simchourtz , l ., and e . j . cragoe . intracellular acidification - induced alkali metal cation h + exchange in human neutrophils . j . gen . physiol . 90 : 737 - 762 , 1987 . 25 . smith , l . m ., j . z . sanders , r . j . kaiser , p . hughes , c . dodd , c . r . connell , c . heiner , s . b . h . kent , and l . e . hood : fluorescence detection in automated dna sequence analysis . nature 321 ; 674 - 679 , 1986 . 26 . tse , c . m ., s . r . brant , s . walker , j . pouyssegur , and m . donowitz . cloning and sequencing of a rabbit cdna encoding an intestinal and kidney - specific na + / h + exchanger isoform ( nhe - 3 ). j . biol . chem . 267 : 9340 - 9346 , 1992 . 27 . tse , c . m ., s . levine , c . h . c . yun , s . r . brant , l . counillon , j . pouyssegur , and m . donowitz . structure / function studies of the epithelial isoforms of the mammalian na + / h + exchanger gene family . j . membrane biol . 135 : 93 - 108 , 1993 . 28 . tse , c . m ., s . levine , c . h . c . yun , s . r . brant , s . nath , j . pouyssegur , and m . donowitz . molecular properties , kinetics and regulation of mammalian na + / h + exchangers . cell physiol . biochem . 4 : 282 - 300 , 1994 . 29 . tse , c . m ., s . a . levine , c . h . c . yun , s . r . brant , j . pouyssegur , m . h . montrose , and m . donowitz . functional characteristics of a cloned epithelial na + / h + exchanger ( nhe3 ): resistance to amiloride and inhibition by protein kinase c . proc . nat . acad . sci . usa 90 : 9110 - 9114 , 1993 . 30 . tse , c . m ., s . a . levine , c . h . c . yun , m . h . montrose , p . j . little , j . pouyssegur , and m . donowitz . cloning and expression of a rabbit cdna encoding a serum - activated ethylisoprnpylamiloride - resistant epithelial na + / h + exchanger isoform nhe - 2 ). j . biol . chem . 268 : 11917 - 11924 , 1993 . 31 . tse , c . m ., a . i . ma , v . w . yang , a . j . m . watson , s . levine m . h . montrose , j . potter , c . sardet , j . pouyssegur , and m . donowitz . molecular cloning and expression of a cdna encoding the rabbit ileal villus cell basolateral membrane na + / h + exchanger . embo j . 10 : 1957 - 1967 , 1991 . 32 . wakabayashi , s ., p . fafournoux , c . sardet , and j . pouyssegur : the na + / h + antiporter cytoplasmic domain mediates growth factor signals and controls h + - sensing . proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 89 : 2424 - 2428 , 1992 . 33 . yelick , p . c ., r . balhorn , p . a . johnson , m . c . corzett , j . a . mazrimas , k . c . kleene , and n . b . hecht . mouse protamine 2 is synthesized as a precursor whereas mouse protamine 1 is not . mol . cell biol . 7 : 2173 - 2179 , 1987 . 34 . yun , c . h ., s . gurubhagavatula , s . a . levine , j . m . montgomery , s . r . brant , m . e . cohen , j . pouyssegur , c . m . tse , and m . donowitz . glucocorticoid stimulation of ileal na + absorptive cell brush border na + / h + exchange and association with an increase in message for nhe - 3 , an epithelial isoform na + / h + exchanger . j . biol . chem . 268 : 206 - 211 , 1993 . 35 . yun , c . h . c ., p . j . little , s . k . nath , s . a . levine , j . pouyssegur , c . m . tse and m . donowitz . leu143 in the putative fourth membrane spanning domain is critical for amiloride inhibition of an epithelial na + / h + exchanger isoform ( nhe2 ) biochem . biophys . res . comm . 193 : 532 - 539 , 1993 . 36 . zamir , z ., j . a . barry , and k . ramaswamy . sodium transport in human intestinal basolateral membrane vesicles . gastroenterology 103 : 1817 - 1822 , 1992 . 37 . berschneider , h . m ., m . r . knowles , r . g . azizkhan , r . c . boucher , n . a . tobey , r . c . orlando , and d . w . powell . altered intestinal chloride transport in cystic fibrosis . faseb j . 2 : 2625 - 2629 , 1988 . 38 . donowitz , m . and m . j . welsh . regulation of mammalian small intestinal electrolyte secretion . physiology of the gastrointestinal tract , ed . l . r . johnson , raven press 2d ed . 1988 , chapter 48 , 1351 - 1388 . 40 . acra , s . and f . k . ghisan . increased na + / h + exchange in jejunal brush border membrane vesicles of spontaneously hypertensive rats . gastroenterology 101 : 430 - 436 , 1991 . 41 . freiberg j . m ., j . kinsella , and b . sacktor . glucocorticoids increase the na + / h + exchange and decrease the na + gradient dependent phosphate uptake systems in renal brush border membrane vesicles . proc . natl . acad . sci . usa 79 : 683 - 712 , 1982 . 42 . harguindey , s . and e . j . cragoe jr . the na + / h + antiporter in oncology in the light of the spontaneous regression of cancer and cell metabolism . medical hypothesis 39 : 229 - 237 , 1992 . 43 . tung , j . s ., b . l . daugherty , l . o &# 39 ; neill , s . w . law , j . han and g . e . mark . pcr amplification of specific sequences from a cdna library in pcr technology : principles and applications of dna amplification . erlich , h . a ., ed ., stockton press , new york , 1989 . 44 . miller , r . t ., l . counillon , g . pages , r . p . lifton , c . sarget , and j . pouyssegur . structure of the 5 &# 39 ;- flanking regulatory region in gene for human growth factor - activatable na + / h + exchanger nhe - 1 . j . bio . chem . 266 : 10813 - 10819 , 1991 . other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein . it is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only , with a true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims . __________________________________________________________________________sequence listing ( 1 ) general information :( iii ) number of sequences : 12 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 1 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 25 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 1 : gcgaattccacacggtacccacgac25 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 2 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 21 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 2 : atgcggtcggccgggctgagc21 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 3 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 19 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 3 : catctggacctggaacacg19 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 4 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 20 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 4 : cgtagctgatggcatccttc20 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 5 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 24 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 5 : atgcgcgtcgggccccggcgctga24 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 6 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 24 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 6 : atgcgtgtcggctcctggagctga24 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 7 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 10 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 7 : gcaggcggca10 ( 2 ) information for seq id no : 8 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 2574 base pairs ( b ) type : nucleic acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : dna ( genomic )( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 8 : 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( 2 ) information for seq id no : 9 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 834 amino acids ( b ) type : amino acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : peptide ( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 9 : 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( 2 ) information for seq id no : 10 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 834 amino acids ( b ) type : amino acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : peptide ( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 10 : 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( 2 ) information for seq id no : 11 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 831 amino acids ( b ) type : amino acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : peptide ( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 11 : 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( 2 ) information for seq id no : 12 :( i ) sequence characteristics :( a ) length : 832 amino acids ( b ) type : amino acid ( c ) strandedness : single ( d ) topology : linear ( ii ) molecule type : peptide ( xi ) sequence description : seq id no : 12 : metserglyargglyglycysglyprocystrpglyleuleuleuala151015leuvalleualaleuglyalaleuprotrpthrglnglyalaglugln202530gluhishisaspgluileglnglypheglnilevalthrphelystrp354045hishisvalglnaspprotyrileilealaleutrpvalleuvalala505560serleualalysilevalphehisleuserhislysvalthrserval65707580valprogluseralaleuleuilevalleuglyleuvalleuglygly859095ilevalleualaalaasphisilealaserphethrleuthrprothr100105110valphephephetyrleuleuproproilevalleuaspalaglytyr115120125phemetproasnargleuphepheserasnleuglyserileleuleu130135140tyralavalvalglythrvaltrpasnalaalathrthrglyleuser145150155160leutyrglyvalpheleuserglyilemetglygluleulysilegly165170175leuleuasppheleuleupheglyserleuilealaalavalasppro180185190valalavalleualavalpheglugluvalhisvalasngluvalleu195200205pheileilevalpheglygluserleuleuasnaspalavalthrval210215220valleutyrasnvalpheglnserphevalthrleuglyglyasplys225230235240valthrglyvalaspcysvallysglyilevalserphephevalval245250255serleuglyglythrleuvalglyvalvalphealapheleuleuser260265270leuvalthrargphethrlyshisvalargvalilegluproglyphe275280285valpheileilesertyrleusertyrleuthrserglumetleuser290295300leuserserileleualailethrphecysglyilecyscysglnlys305310315320tyrvallysalaasnilesergluglnseralathrthrvalargtyr325330335thrmetlysmetleualaserglyalagluthrileilephemetphe340345350leuglyileseralavalaspproleuiletrpthrtrpasnthrala355360365phevalargleuthrleuleuphevalservalpheargalailegly370375380valvalleuglnthrtrpleuleuasnargtyrargmetvalglnleu385390395400gluleuileaspglnvalvalmetsertyrglyglyleuargglyala405410415valalaphealaleuvalalaleuleuaspglyasnlysvallysglu420425430lysasnleuphevalserthrthrileilevalvalphephethrval435440445ilepheglnglyleuthrilelysproleuvalglntrpleulysval450455460lysargsergluhisarggluprolysleuasnglulysleuhisgly465470475480argalapheasphisileleuseralailegluaspileserglygln485490495ileglyhisasntyrleuargasplystrpalaasnpheaspargarg500505510pheleuserlysleuleumetargglnseralaglnlysserargasp515520525argileleuasnvalphehisgluleuasnleulysaspalaileser530535540tyrvalthrgluglygluargargglyserleualapheileargser545550555560proserthraspasnmetvalasnvalasppheserthrproargpro565570575serthrvalglualaservalsertyrleuleuarggluseralaser580585590alavalcysleuaspmetglnserleugluglnargargargserval595600605argaspalagluaspvalilethrhishisthrleuglnglntyrleu610615620tyrlysproargglnglutyrlyshisleutyrserarghisvalleu625630635640serprosergluaspglulysglnasplysgluilephehisargthr645650655metarglysargleugluserphelysseralalysleuglyleugly660665670glnserlyslysalathrlyshislysarggluarggluargalagln675680685lysargargasnserservalproasnglylysleuproleuaspser690695700proargtyrglyleuthrleulysgluarggluleugluleuserasp705710715720progluglualaproasptyrtyrglualaglulysmetserglygly725730735ileglupheleualaservalthrlysvalserthrseraspserpro740745750alaglyileaspasnprovalpheserproaspgluaspleualapro755760765serleuleualaargvalproprotrpleuserproglyglualaval770775780valproserglnargalaargvalglnileprotyrserproglyasn785790795800pheargargleualapropheargleuserasnlysservalaspser805810815pheleuleualagluaspglyalagluhisprogluserthrhismet820825830__________________________________________________________________________	2
[ 0009 ] fig4 is a cross sectional and perspective view of a dual damascene semiconductor structure in the process of fabrication according to one embodiment of the present invention . layer 120 is polysilicon formed by chemical vapor deposition ( cvd ) over a monocrystalline silicon wafer 410 . before fabrication of layer 120 , the wafer 410 may have been processed to form devices such as mos transistor 420 . the transistor &# 39 ; s source / drain regions 430 were formed in substrate 410 , gate insulation 440 was formed over the substrate , and gate 450 was formed over the gate insulation . other devices , including non - mos devices , could be formed using known techniques . layer 120 can also be part of substrate 410 ( this embodiment is not shown in fig4 ). in the embodiment of fig4 dielectric 460 was deposited over the wafer . then layer 120 was formed as described above , and was patterned by a plasma etch . an exemplary thickness of layer 120 is 150 nm . dielectric layer 110 was deposited over the layer 120 . in some embodiments , dielectric 110 was a combination of two silicon dioxide layers . the first layer was psg ( phosphosilicate glass ) deposited by chemical vapor deposition ( cvd ). the second layer was silicon dioxide deposited by cvd from teos . the combined thickness of the two layers was approximately 900 nm . then a photoresist layer ( not shown ) was deposited and patterned photolithographically to define a via 464 . in some embodiments , the mask opening defining the via was round in top view , with a diameter of 0 . 18 μm . the via was formed in layer 110 with a plasma etch . the photoresist was removed , and another layer of photoresist ( not shown ) was deposited and patterned photolithographically to define a trench 470 in dielectric 110 for a tungsten interconnect . in some embodiments , the trench length was approximately 1 mm . the trench width was 0 . 22 μm . the trench was etched with a timed etch to a depth of approximately 250 nm . via 464 was fully exposed at the bottom of the trench . then the top surface of the structure was exposed to rf plasma in argon atmosphere for 10 seconds . the argon flow was 5 sccm ( standard cubic centimeters per minute ). the rf power was 315 w . this operation removed native oxide from layer 120 . also , this operation smoothened ( rounded ) top edges 480 of trench 470 and via 464 . the rounded edges are desirable to reduce stress in titanium nitride 150 ( fig5 ) at these edges so as to reduce the risk of volcano formation . the rf plasma operation was performed in a system of type endura available from applied materials of santa clara , calif . then titanium layer 140 ( fig5 ) was sputter deposited from a titanium target . the sputtering was performed at a temperature of 200 ° c . in argon atmosphere . the base pressure ( the pressure before the argon flow was turned on ) was 5 × 10 − 7 torr . the dc power was 4000 w , the rf power was 2500 w . the wafer ac bias was 150 w . the titanium deposition was performed in a system of type endura , in an ionized metal plasma ( imp ) chamber of type vectra , available from applied materials . the thickness of ti layer 140 was varied . in one embodiment , the thickness was 10 nm . in another embodiment , the thickness was 36 nm . then titanium nitride 150 was deposited by reactive sputtering from a titanium target in a nitrogen atmosphere . the base pressure ( the pressure before the nitrogen flow was turned on ) was 5 × 10 − 7 torr . the nitrogen flow was 28 sccm ( standard cubic centimeters per minute ), the dc power was 4000 w , the rf power was 2500 w , the wafer bias was 150 w . the deposition temperature was 200 ° c . the deposition was performed in a system of type endura , in an imp chamber of type vectra , available from applied materials . the thickness of the tin layer 150 was 20 nm in one embodiment , 30 nm in another embodiment . then the structure was heated to a temperature between 600 ° c . and 700 ° c . for 20 to 30 seconds in a nitrogen atmosphere . ( this operation is referred to herein as rapid thermal anneal , or rta .) the base pressure was 100 - 120 torr , the nitrogen flow was 8 slm ( standard liters per minute ). the temperature was 620 ° c . in one embodiment , 670 ° c . in another embodiment . the anneal was performed in a system of type heatpulse 8800 available from ag associates , inc ., of san jose , calif . the anneal is believed to have increased the lateral size of tin grains 150 g ( fig3 ). then tungsten layer 160 was deposited by cvd in two stages . at the first stage , the chemical reaction was : this stage lasted 10 seconds . then the silane ( sih 4 ) flow was turned off , and the hydrogen flow was turned on for the second stage . the chemical reaction was : see s . wolf , “ silicon processing for the vlsi era ”, vol . 2 ( 1990 ), page 246 , incorporated herein by reference . both stages were performed in a system of type concept 1 available from novellus systems of san jose , calif . the silane flow was 20 sccm . the hydrogen flow was 12 - 15 slm ( standard liters per minute ). the wf 6 flow was 350 sccm . the pressure was 40 torr . the temperature was 400 ° c . then the layers 160 , 150 , 140 were polished off the top of dielectric 110 . 2 by cmp . the resulting structure is shown in fig6 . prior to cmp , the structure was examined for volcanoes using an optical microscope and sem and stem microscopes . the results are given in table 1 below . the second column of table 1 indicates the temperature of the rapid thermal anneal , described above , performed after the deposition of tin 150 before the deposition of tungsten 160 . in embodiment no . 1 , the anneal was omitted . these results show , unexpectedly , that the use of thinner ti and tin layers in combination with the rta can provide a better protection against the volcanoes than thicker layers without the rta . the thinner layers can eliminate the volcanoes at the lower rta temperature of 620 ° c . lower rta temperatures are desirable to reduce impurity diffusion during the rta , to prevent melting or softening of materials having low melting temperatures ( e . g . aluminum ), and reduce wafer warping . the invention is not limited to the particular materials , dimensions , structures , or fabrication processes described above . the invention is not limited to a thickness or composition of any particular layer , or the number , shape and size of vias 464 or trenches 470 . the trench length , for example , is 2 μm in some embodiments , and other lengths are possible . the invention is not limited to the particular gas flow rates , temperatures , or any other fabrication parameters or equipment . some embodiments use nitrogen sources other than pure nitrogen for the rta or titanium nitride deposition . for example , ammonia ( nh 3 ) or h 2 / n 2 can be used . the invention is not limited to the rapid thermal anneal or to any particular anneal temperature . non - rapid anneals can be used . the anneal can be performed with plasma or with other heating techniques , known or to be invented . the invention is applicable to tin sputtered from a tin target . the invention is applicable to single damascene , dual damascene , and other structures , for example , to tungsten plugs formed in contact vias in non - damascene structures , and to tungsten features other than plugs . titanium 140 is omitted in some embodiments . the invention is applicable to different tungsten cvd techniques , including tungsten deposition from wcl 6 rather than wf 6 . the invention is not limited by particular materials chosen for the layers 120 , 110 , 460 . some embodiments involve non - silicon semiconductor materials . the invention is not limited to any particular sputtering process , and further is applicable to tin deposited by physical vapor deposition techniques other than sputtering . for example , pulsed laser deposition and other evaporation techniques can be used . see “ handbook of semiconductor manufacturing technology ” ( 2000 ), cited above , pages 395 - 413 , incorporated herein by reference . layer 120 ( fig4 ) can be a metal layer , and can be part of the second , third , or higher metallization layers . the term “ layer ”, as used herein , may refer to a combination of two or more other layers . the invention is defined by the appended claims .	7
as used herein , the phrases “ selected from the group consisting of ,” “ chosen from ,” and the like include mixtures of the specified materials . tunis such as “ contains ” and the like are meant to include “ including at least ” unless otherwise specifically noted . where a numerical limit or range is stated , the endpoints are included . also , all values and subranges within a numerical limit or range are specifically included as if explicitly written out . the various embodiments and compositions described herein are typically used by persons desiring to protect their skin from harmful environmental factors , or to repair skin that has been previously damaged by such factors . for example , persons using those compositions may seek to prevent damage to the skin caused by lack of hydration , inflammation or infrared radiation . benefits of using the compositions of the present invention include retaining and / or restoring and / or improving physical and mechanical properties of the skin which includes smoothness , taughtness , resiliency and radiance . the present invention is directed to a topical skin care composition containing a combination of an aloe leaf extract , a stable , oil soluble form of vitamin c , a palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex , a bioengineered biofunctional peptide to boost the natural endogenous synthesis of coq10 , a glutathione - biomimetic antioxidant peptide , a peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 , an exopolysaccharide , a knotgrass extract , a phyto - complex , an oat avenanthramide extract , an oat β - glucan , a soy based complex , and an extract from dried apples . the combination promotes rejuvenation of the skin and inhabits damage to skin caused by dehydration and environmental factors . as a result , the composition provides surprising performance benefits in reducing or removing fine lines and wrinkles , firming the skin , hydrating the skin and promoting a younger appearance . the aloe leaf extract used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources or harvested according to known collection and extraction procedures . the aloe leaf extract may be an extract of the leaves of aloe barbadensis . this extract provides a combination of vitamins , minerals and amino acids that has been found to hydrate and soothe skin irritations . one source for such an extract is aloe barbadensis leaf extract 200x , sold by concentrated aloe corporation ( ormond beach , fl .) according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the aloe leaf extract is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 01 % to 0 . 50 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 09 % to 0 . 11 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 05 % to 0 . 10 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the stable , oil based source of vitamin c ( ascorbic acid ) used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the stable , oil based source of vitamin c has been found to provide anti - oxidant protection along with promotion of collagen synthesis to normalize uneven skin tone an diminish age spots . one source for such a stable , oil based source of vitamin c ( ascorbic acid ) is bv - osc , sold by barnett products corporation ( edgewood cliffs , n . j .) according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the stable , oil based source of vitamin c ( ascorbic acid ) is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 01 % to 10 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 095 % to 3 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 10 % to 0 . 11 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex is comprised predominately of four tocotrienol isomers ( alpha , beta , gamma and delta ) together with tocopherols . the palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex has been found to maintain healthy skin especially by preventing oxidative stress and providing protection against uv - induced skin damage . one source for such a palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex is tocomin 50 % c ( l ), sold by carotech inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the palm tocotrienol / tocopherol complex is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 05 % to 3 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 05 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 09 % to 0 . 11 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the bioengineered biofunctional peptide used to boost the natural endogenous synthesis of coq10 used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the bioengineered biofunctional peptide has been found to boost the natural endogenous synthesis of coq10 which helps to diminish the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines , and to retard the appearance of aging . one source for such a bioengineered biofunctional peptide is peptide q10 biofunctional , sold by ashland , inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the bioengineered biofunctional peptide is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 05 % to 1 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 50 % to 1 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 45 % to 0 . 55 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the glutathione - biomimetic antioxidant peptide used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the glutathione - biomimetic antioxidant peptide has been found to protect against glycation damage to the skin , to protect the skin from environmental stresses , and to prevent loss of skin resiliency . one source for such a glutathione - biomimetic antioxidant peptide is quintescine is , sold by ashland , inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the glutathione - biomimetic antioxidant peptide is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 20 % to 2 . 5 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 2 % to 0 . 5 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 225 % to 0 . 275 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 has been found to defend the skin collagen and elastin network against deleterious damage caused by aging and environmental factors such as uv radiation , pollution , and cigarette smoke . the peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 has also been found to reduce the symptoms of actinic aging and helps to increase the elasticity and firmness of the skin . one source for such a peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 is ecm - protect bfg 100 , sold by lucas meyer cosmetics . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the peptide inhibitor of elastase and mmp - 1 is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 5 % to 10 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 4 . 0 % to 6 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 4 . 5 % to 5 . 5 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the exopolysaccharide used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the exopolysaccharide has been found to chelate heavy metals and to protect skin cells from uv and pollutants , thus decreasing premature aging and skin damage , and reducing skin sensitivity caused by urban pollution . one source for such an exopolysaccharide is exo - p , sold by lucas meyer cosmetics . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the exopolysaccharide is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 3 % to 5 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 5 % to 3 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 2 . 7 % to 3 . 3 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the knotgrass extract used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the knotgrass extract is rich in flavonoids which have been found to protect dermis fibers from damage caused by uv and infrared radiation from the sun . it has also been found to increase skin firmness and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and to prevent premature photo - aging of the skin . one source for knotgrass extract is ilix - ir , sold by lucas meyer cosmetics . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the knotgrass extract is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 5 % to 2 . 2 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 5 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 1 . 8 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the phyto - complex used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the phyto - complex has been found to protect and improve skin radiance through the transformation of uv rays into a source of visible light . this helps reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles , making skin to appear more radiant and youthful . one source for such a phyto - complex is luminescine , sold by tri - k industries , inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the phyto - complex is present in an amount ranging from 1 . 0 % to 5 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 3 . 0 % to 5 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 9 % to 1 . 1 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the oat avenanthramide extract used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . oat avenanthramide extract has been found to be a natural anti - oxidant and anti - irritant that protects from uv exposure and reduces redness , inflammation and itching of the skin . one source for such an oat avenanthramide extract is cp oat avenanthramide extract 902 - 3043 , sold by ceapro , inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the oat avenanthramide extract is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 1 % to 3 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 3 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 45 % to 0 . 55 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the oat β - glucan used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the oat β - glucan has been found to penetrate and moisturize the skin , and to promote procollagen formation . one source for such a oat β - glucan is colloidal oatmeal irradiated , sold by oat cosmetics or charkit chemical corporation . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the oat β - glucan is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 05 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 1 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 225 % to 0 . 275 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the soy based complex used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the soy based complex has been found to improve hydration , clarity , and firmness of the skin . the soy based complex has also been found to provide anti - flakiness and anti - wrinkle benefits . one source for such a soy based complex is allosteris , sold by barnet products corporation . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the soy based complex is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 1 % to 3 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 1 . 0 % to 2 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 9 % to 1 . 1 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . the extract from dried apples used in the compositions of the present invention may be obtained from commercial sources . the extract from dried apples is a moisturizing saccharide complex that has been found to moisturize and smooth skin texture . one source for such an extract from dried apples is botanimoist ams , sold by botanigenics , inc . according to one embodiment or composition of the invention , the extract from dried apples is present in an amount ranging from 0 . 5 % to 10 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and preferably from about 0 . 5 % to 5 . 0 % by weight of the topical skin care composition , and most preferably in an amount ranging from 0 . 9 % to 1 . 1 % by weight of the topical skin care composition . other components may also be included in the compositions of various embodiments of the present invention . for example , purified water may be used as a diluent . carpobol ultrez 30 20 , available from lubrazol , which is a mixture of acrylates / c10 - 30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer , may be used as a thickener and carrier . ammonium acryloydimethyltauratenp copolymer , sold by clariant as aristoflex avc may be used as an emulsifier . trisodium ethylenediamine disuccinate , sold by innospec as natriquest e30 , may be used as a chelating agent . propanediol dicaprylate / caprate , sold by phoenix chemical as pelemol p - 810 , may be used as an emollient , and proanediol , sold by dupont as zemea , may be used as a humectant . a preservative , such as linatural mbs - 1 , sold by lincoln fine ingredients , may also be used . a ph modifier , such as aminomethyl propanol , sold as amp ultra pc 2000 by angus , may also be used . the invention is now more fully illustrated using the following example , which is not to be understood as limiting the invention to the embodiments described . a topical cream for day use was prepared using the ingredients set forth in table 1 below . the day cream was prepared by mixing ingredients 1 through 21 in a sanitized stainless steel processing tank using moderate agitation until a homogenous cream suitable for application to the skin of a user is obtained . mixing was performed at 30 - 50 hertz with propeller and side sweep agitation . after 1 hour of mixing , a top and bottom sample was evaluated for uniform polymer dispersion . the resulting topical day cream was an opaque , viscous emulsion , off - white in color . the ph at 25 degrees centigrade was between 4 . 95 - 5 . 25 , the viscosity was between 2000 - 6500 cps as measured by a brookfield viscometer , and the specific gravity at 25 degrees centigrade was between 0 . 982 - 1 . 022 . a topical cream for day use was prepared using the ingredients set forth in table 2 below . the day cream was prepared by mixing ingredients 1 through 21 in a sanitized stainless steel processing tank using moderate agitation until a homogenous cream suitable for application to the skin of a user is obtained . mixing was performed at 30 - 50 hertz with propeller and side sweep agitation . after 1 hour of mixing , a top and bottom sample was evaluated for uniform polymer dispersion . the resulting topical day cream was an opaque , viscous emulsion , off - white in color . the ph at 25 degrees centigrade was between 4 . 95 - 5 . 25 , the viscosity was between 2000 - 6500 cps as measured by a brookfield viscometer , and the specific gravity at 25 degrees centigrade was between 0 . 982 - 1 . 022 . the examples presented above provide a process for making and using the various embodiments of the invention to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the same . it will be understood that the various examples may be used to protect a user &# 39 ; s face and other skin areas from the harmful effects of various environmental factors . it will also be understood that the various embodiments of the invention may be used in concert with other topical liquids , creams , sprays and the like without departing from the intended scope of the invention . in another embodiment , the invention includes a method of treating skin comprising applying the topical skin care composition such as is described above to the skin . typically , the topical skin care composition is applied to the skin , often the face , which may , for example , but not limited to , have wrinkles , fine lines , uneven tone , loss of firmness , surface roughness , dark circles , under - eye puffiness , sun damage , redness , dryness , irritation , enlarged ports and combinations of all or some of the above . alternatively , the topical skin care composition may be applied to the skin to prevent the occurrence of the various problems described above . the novel compositions of the present invention are used by subjects desiring to obtain the benefits noted above , including the hydration of their skin , increasing the skins resiliency and radiance , and proving protection against inflammation - related signs of aging , such as fine lines and wrinkles . use of the various compositions of the invention may decrease the size of skin pores , even out the tone of the skin , and improve the texture of the skin . typically , a person using the compositions of the invention apply them to the their skin in amounts that obtain one or more of the noted benefits . for example , the compositions of the invention may be applied to a skin area so as to improve the texture of the skin , reduce pore size , or hydrate dry skin . alternatively , the compositions may be applied to prevent damage to the skin caused by environmental facts that sunscreen cannot protect against , such as , for example , damage caused by inflammation and infrared radiation . the amount used is typically sufficient to obtain coverage of a desired area of the skin , such as the face , with a single application . the compositions of the various embodiments of the present invention may also be used over the course of a period of time , with the amount of the compositions used including the amount used during repeated applications . for example , the compositions of the various embodiments of the present invention may be applied to a desired area of the skin on a daily basis , either once a day or several times per day , over the course of days , weeks , months or any time period desired by the user . the various compositions of the embodiments of the invention are typically considered to be light - weight , easily absorbed and layer cleanly under makeup or other substances applied to the skin without pilling or feeling heavy . the skin care compositions of the various embodiments of the present invention may be formulated to be used on an “ as needed ” basis , or they may be formulated for application at specific times of the day , or multiple times during the time the user is awake . they may also be formulated for use on an every other day , weekly , monthly or other basis . the compositions of the various embodiments of the present invention may also be formulated for application by the fingers of the user , or they may be formulated for application by some application means , such as , for example , a soft pad or other applicator well known in the art . the compositions of the various embodiments of the present invention may also be used as part of a skin treatment regimen , and may also be used in conjunction with other skin creams and makeup . in one embodiment , a user of a skin care composition in accordance with the present invention cleanses his / her skin and gently pats the skin dry . a thin , even layer of the skin care composition in accordance with the present invention is applied to the face , neck , or other portions of the body . the skin care composition is then gently massaged into the skin . this process may be performed every morning , for example . while particular embodiments of the present invention have been described , it is understood that various different modifications within the scope and spirit of the invention are possible . the invention is limited only by the scope of the appended claims .	0
note : statements of characteristics herein represent exemplary observations of the cultivar herein and will vary depending on time of year , location , annual weather , etc . where dimensions , sizes , colors , and other characteristics are given , it is to be understood that such characteristics are approximations and averages . the descriptions reported herein are generally from specimen plants that were planted in august 2008 and later at nogales , fifth region , chile . parentage : note : the parents and camila have not been evaluated side - by - side . the data about camila is from chile and the data for the parents are from arkansas , usa . female parent : name : name : apf - 77 ( proprietary , and marketed under the trademark black magic ™) u . s . plant patent application ( 13 / 374 , 444 ) filed 29 dec . 2011 . comparing apf - 77 grown in arkansas to camila grown in chile , the average floricane berry weight of apf - 77 is 6 to 7 grams compared to 5 . 9 grams for camila . floricane first bloom date and first ripe date for apf - 77 appear to be about a week to 10 days earlier compared to camila : the floricane first bloom date for apf - 77 is 1 april ( northern hemisphere ) versus 10 october ( southern hemisphere ) for camila while the first ripe date for apf - 77 is 2 june versus 8 december for camila . the first primocane bloom date for apf - 77 is 10 june ( northern hemisphere ) compared to 20 december for camila ( southern hemisphere ), and the first primocane ripe fruit are 15 july ( northern hemisphere ) for apf - 77 compared to 10 february ( southern hemisphere ) for camila . soluble solids in primocane fruit of camila is 10 . 2 ° brix compared to 15 . 1 ° brix for apf - 77 . male parent : name : apf - 109t . u . s . plant patent : unpatented . comparing apf - 109t grown in arkansas to camila grown in chile , apf - 109t is thornless and has a smaller berry than camila : floricane berries for apf - 109t average 4 . 4 grams versus 5 . 9 grams for camila berries . the harvest window appears to be similar or perhaps camila would be slightly earlier : the window is about 16 june ( northern hemisphere ) for apf - 109t compared to about 8 december for camila ( southern hemisphere ). the soluble solids of camila are higher : 11 . 3 ° brix for camila compared to 9 . 2 ° brix for apf - 109t . the cross for camila was made in 2006 near clarksville , ark ., usa . it was a controlled hand pollination of the female parent ( apf 77 )× apf 109t ( male parent ). resultant seedlings were germinated in a nursery near hijuelas , fifth region of valparaiso , chile during the southern hemisphere summer of 2006 - 07 . 285 individual seedlings from this cross were planted in the field near nogales , fifth region of valpariso , chile between december 2007 and january 2008 . the first evaluation of these seedlings was in early summer ( november ) 2008 and continued through april 2009 . the selection that became camila was selected in 2009 because the seedling stood out for its very good flavor and the early maturity on primocanes . camila was first asexually propagated by planting root pieces horizontally in containers containing a bark / peat mix in august 2009 in a greenhouse in macul , santiago , chile . etiolated shoots that emerged from the root pieces were put in a peat / perlite mix and rooted under humid conditions ( covered by clear polyethylene plastic ). camila has also been asexually reproduced using in vitro culture . propagated plants have retained the original characteristics . field observations were made in 2009 and later , mostly in nogales , chile , including evaluation over three primocane fruiting cycles and two floricane fruiting cycles between january 2009 and april 2011 . camila consistently showed above average horticultural traits and was consistently at the top for taste tests for flavor . for firmness readings , firmness was ranked by on a scale of one to five , with 1 being very firm , and 5 being very soft . general description : the camila blackberry is characterized for its early fruit maturity , both on floricanes and on primocanes . the floricane crop begins to ripen during the first week of december ( central chile ). the primocane crop begins to ripen during the second week of february ( central chile ). the fruit has very good ( sweet ) flavor . the fruit is additionally quite attractive and is elongate and large . fruit firmness is not very high , but its postharvest keeping ability is acceptable and it shows minimal color change ( to red ) of the drupelets when put in cold storage . the plant is healthy , moderately vigorous , and productive . camila is a thorny variety . average size information : in the study , plants were “ pinched ” during growth , so they were not allowed to grow freely . it is estimated that if not pinch - pruned , the primocanes would reach between about 1 . 7 and 2 . 2 m in height . growth : plants have medium vegetative vigor , and erect growth habit . camila makes abundant canes , with primocanes emerging both from the crown of the plant as well as from the roots ( as suckers ). growth rate : the growth rate is moderate , with canes reaching an average of 0 . 8 meters in height within one month of emergence from the soil in the spring . productivity : high , yields average 2 . 0 kg and 2 . 9 kg of fruit per meter of row , on the floricane and on the primocane cycles , respectively . cold hardiness : ultimate cold hardiness is unknown , but in chile dormant plants have resisted midwinter lows of − 3 ° c . without damage . branching height of the plants : unknown ( they are always pinched to induce branching and never left to grow to their own devices ). canes : general description : erect , thorny , and medium vigor . cane diameter ( indicate point of measurement ): floricane : date of primocane emergence : primocanes emerge during the first weeks of october ( in chile , at 32 ° 45 ′ s . lat ., 220 m elev .) and continue emerging until the second week of november . date of budbreak : vegetative budbreak occurs during the second week of september ( in chile at 32 ° 45 ′ s . lat ., 220 m elev .). foliage : general description : leaves are green with 3 to 5 leaflets , leaves are large with double - serrate margins . the adaxial side of each leaflet is dark green with the veins being somewhat more yellowish . the abaxial side is lighter green than the adaxial side , with soft trichomes ( indumentum ) over the entire surface . the petioles and petiolules of each leaflet have one rank of thorns , which extend up ¼ of the length of the central vein of each leaflet . leaves : width .— 16 . 85 cm . length .— 20 . 13 cm ( including petiole ). number of leaflets .— 3 to 5 per leaf . width .— 5 . 23 cm . length .— 9 . 46 cm ( including petiolules ). margin .— doubly serrate . shape .— cordate with acuminate tips . color .— base adaxial : green with the central vein of lighter green color . base abaxial : lighter green than the adaxial side , the central vein being even lighter green with a yellowish cast . midpoint adaxial : green , veins of the same color and shade . midpoint abaxial : green , but of a lighter shade than the adaxial side , yellowish colored veins . terminal adaxial : light green , with the veins being the same color and shade . terminal abaxial : light green , but a lighter shade than the adaxial side , with the veins being the same color . length .— 10 . 25 cm . color .— light green ( with a yellowish cast ). length .— 1 - 4 cm . color .— light green ( with a slightly yellowish cast ). date of bloom .— ( central chile ). 10 % bloom : 20th of december 50 % bloom : 30th of december last bloom : 2nd week of january . stamens .— the stamens are long , erect , and numerous . pistils .— numerous . pollen .— fertile and abundant . ovary .— superior . average number flowers per cluster : 6 - 7 average number of petals per flower : 5 - 9 peduncle length : 3 . 58 cm peduncle color : green floricane : there are no material differences noted for flower dimensions and inflorescence characteristics for floricanes compared to primocanes , but bloom times for floricanes are : date of bloom : ( central chile ) fruit : general description : the fruit of camila stands out for its good flavor , large size , and low rate of color regression ( to red drupelets ) in post - harvest storage . the ratio of soluble solids to acidity averages 19 on floricane fruits and for primocane fruits , the ratio averages 23 ( both values on plants grown at the experimental plot at nogales , chile ). on both the floricane and primocane fruits there is no noticeable bitter aftertaste that is typical of eastern blackberries . the level of reversion of drupelets to a red color in postharvest storage ( 5 ° c .) is low . the fruits have an attractive appearance . they are elongated in shape and large in size . the firmness is medium , but it is acceptable . primocane : average first ripe date : 10th of february ( for plants grown under shade cloth at 50 % shade ) at nogales , fifth region of valparaiso , chile . this ripening date is seven ( 7 ) days earlier than apf - 8 under the same conditions . the primocane harvest lasts for approximately 50 days . size : large ( 8 . 4 g on average ) diameter : length : 3 . 01 cm shape : oblong ( elongate ) drupelet size : medium ( 0 . 42 cm average ) seed size : small firmness : medium flavor : very good , sweet , without bitterness soluble solids : 15 . 1 ° bx ph : not measured acidity : 0 . 7 % processed quality : not evaluated uses : fresh market prickles : none floricane : average first ripe date : 8th of december ( for plants grown under shade cloth at 50 % shade ) at nogales , fifth region of valparaiso , chile . this date is approximately 35 days before navaho . the floricane harvest lasts for about 35 days . size : medium ( 5 . 9 g on average ). diameter : length : 2 . 85 cm shape : oblong ( elongate ) drupelet size : medium , 0 . 39 cm seed size : small firmness : medium , similar to the blackberry cultivar apf - 12 but firmer than apf - 8 flavor : sweet and very good flavor soluble solids : 11 . 3 ° bx ph : not measured acidity : 0 . 6 % processed quality : not evaluated uses : fresh market prickles : none thus , in some aspects , the camila blackberry is characterized by having early ripening both on floricanes and primocanes . the fruits themselves are also distinctive in that they have excellent flavor , large size , elongated shape and are visually attractive . furthermore , the fruits have a low rate of color reversion ( to red ) in cold storage . the plant has good vigor and high productivity . fruit characteristics are similar on both primocanes and floricanes , except that primocane fruits are sweeter , have higher yields , and are larger than the floricane crop .	0
although the techniques introduced above and discussed in detail below may be implemented for a variety of medical devices , the present disclosure will discuss the implementation of these techniques in the context of a medical ventilator and oximeter for use in providing ventilation support to a human patient , the reader will understand that the technology described , in the context of a medical ventilator and oximeter for human patients could be adapted for use with other systems and purposes , such as treating non - human patients . medical ventilators are used to provide a breathing gas to a patient who may otherwise be unable to breathe sufficiently , in modem medical facilities , pressurized air and oxygen sources are often available from wall outlets . however , ventilators may also provide pressure regulating valves ( or regulators ) connected to localized sources of pressurized air and pressurized oxygen . internal to the ventilator are regulating valves that function to regulate flow so that respiratory gas having a desired concentration of oxygen is supplied to the patient at desired pressures and rates . ventilators capable of operating independently of external sources of pressurized air are also available . while operating a ventilator , it is desirable to control the percentage of oxygen in the gas supplied by the ventilator to the patient . further , it is desirable to monitor the oxygen saturation level of blood ( spo 2 level ) of a patient . accordingly , medical care facilities typically have oximeters for non - invasively determining the spo 2 level of a patient . although ventilators and oximeters are often used on the same patient , ventilators typically display data based solely on respiratory data monitored by the ventilator . further , oximeters typically display data based solely on the oximeter readings . however , it is desirable to display information that incorporates oximeter data with ventilator data for the patient , ventilator operator , and / or medical caregiver , the present disclosure describes trended spo 2 data that is graphically depicted on a display as a function of a positive end - expiratory pressure ( peep ) and / or other respiratory parameters such as fio 2 . peep is the pressure exerted at the end of expiration to oppose passive emptying of the lung and to keep the airway pressure above the atmospheric pressure , by displaying the combination of spo 2 and peep , a significantly clearer picture of the time - based cause and effect of peep on spo 2 . can be better inferred . this clearer picture allows a clinician to more appropriately adjust peep and / or oxygen levels . those skilled in the art will recognize that the methods and systems of the present disclosure may be implemented in many ways and as such are not to be limited by the foregoing exemplary embodiments and examples . in other words , functional elements being performed by a single or multiple components , in various combinations of hardware and software or firmware , and individual functions , can be distributed among software applications at either the client or server level or both . in this regard , any number of the features of the different embodiments described herein may be combined into single or multiple embodiments , and alternate embodiments having fewer than or more than all of the features herein described are possible . functionality may also be , in whole or in part , distributed among multiple components , in manners now known or to become known . thus , myriad software / hardware / firmware combinations are possible in achieving the functions , features , interfaces and preferences described herein . moreover , the scope of the present disclosure covers conventionally known ways for carrying out the described features and functions and interfaces . and those variations and modifications that may be made to the hardware or software or firmware components described herein as would be understood by those skilled in the art now and hereafter . fig1 illustrates an embodiment of a ventilator 20 connected to a human patient 24 . ventilator 20 includes a pneumatic system 22 ( also referred to as a pressure generating system 22 ) for circulating breathing gases to and from patient 24 via the ventilation tubing system 26 , which couples the patient 24 to the pneumatic system 22 via physical patient interface 28 and ventilator circuit 30 . ventilator 20 also includes an oximeter 62 for determining the spo 2 of patient 24 , which is operatively coupled to the ventilator 20 during ventilation , ventilator circuit 30 could be a two - limb or one - limb circuit 30 for carrying gas to and from the patient 24 . in a two - limb embodiment as shown , a wye fitting 36 may be provided as shown to couple the patient interface 28 to the inspiratory limb 32 and the expiratory limb 34 of the circuit 30 , the present description contemplates that the patient interface 28 may be invasive or non - invasive , and of any configuration suitable for communicating a flow of breathing gas from the patient circuit 30 to an airway of the patient 24 . examples of suitable patient interface 28 devices include a nasal mask , nasal / oral mask ( which is shown in fig1 ), nasal prong , full - face mask , tracheal tube , endotracheal tube , nasal pillow , etc . pneumatic system 22 may be configured in a variety of ways . in the present example , system 22 includes an expiratory module 40 coupled with an expiratory limb 34 and an inspiratory module 42 coupled with an inspiratory limb 32 . compressor 44 or another source or sources of pressurized gas ( e . g ., pressured air and / or oxygen ) is controlled through the use of one or more gas regulators . the pneumatic system 22 may include a variety of other components , including sources for pressurized air and / or oxygen , mixing modules , valves , sensors , tubing , filters , etc . the oximeter 62 is connected to a patient oximeter sensor 64 . as illustrated , in an embodiment , the oximeter 62 is a completely separate and independent component from the ventilator 20 . in an alternative embodiment , the oximeter 62 is part of the ventilator system or the pneumatic system 22 . the oximeter 62 determines an oxygen gas saturation level of blood in the patient based on the patient readings taken by the pulse oximeter sensor 64 during ventilation of patient 24 by the ventilator 20 . the oximeter sends the measured oxygen saturation level of the blood of patient 24 to a controller 50 . the controller 50 may be any individual controller or combination of controllers within ventilator 20 or operatively coupled to ventilator 20 . in one embodiment , the controller 50 includes a spo 2 controller , peep controller and / or fio 2 controller , controller 50 monitors the peep of patient 24 , in one embodiment , controller 50 sends a graph plotting the spo 2 and peep of patient 24 in two separate lines versus time on the same graph to display 59 . in another embodiment , controller 50 sends the necessary data to the display 59 for displaying a graph plotting a function of spo 2 and peep versus time . in an additional embodiment , controller 50 monitors the fractional inspired oxygen ( fio 2 ) delivered to patient 24 . in one embodiment , controller 50 sends the necessary data to display 59 for displaying a graph plotting spo 2 , fio 2 and peep of patient 24 in three separate lines versus time on the same graph . in another embodiment , controller 50 sends the necessary data to display 59 for displaying a graph plotting a function of fio 2 , spo 2 and peep versus time on a graph . in this embodiment , the function of spo 2 and peep or fio 2 , spo 2 and peep may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio and / or any other mathematical relationship between the separate readings . this function is then plotted on a graph versus time . in an embodiment , controller 50 sends the necessary data to the display 59 for displaying a graph plotting the blood gas oxygen saturation level along with the fractional inspired oxygen concentration and peep to graphically depict the relationship between fio 2 , spo 2 and peep . in one embodiment , the graph is displayed on an oximeter display , in another embodiment , the graph is displayed on a ventilator display 59 . in another embodiment , the graph may display upper and / or lower preset thresholds for the plotted line or lines . as used herein , the term “ preset ” refers to any parameter that is calculated by the operator , entered by the operator , set during configuration , or selected by the operator . in this embodiment , the graph may designate with lines , colors , and / or shapes a preset threshold for the plotted line or lines , the preset threshold marker provides the patient , ventilator operator , and / or medical caregiver with a . quick and easy way to check the status of the patient . further , the patient , ventilator operator , and / or medical caregiver can determine with one glance the severity of a preset threshold breach . the severity of the breach is determined by the amount by which the parameter exceeds the preset threshold , the magnitude of the breach and the duration of the breach , which are fully visible in this embodiment to the patient . ventilator operator , and / or medical caregiver on the displayed graph . further , the graph illustrates the relationship between spo 2 and peep or spo 2 and fio 2 at a glance providing the operator with additional useful information for operating the ventilator . in another embodiment , the graph illustrates the relationship between spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep at a glance providing the operator with additional useful information for managing the ventilator . in one embodiment , as illustrated in fig1 , the plotting of the data is performed by a graph module 57 in controller 50 . the graph module 57 interprets the spo 2 , and peep data . and / or fio 2 data and converts this information into the form necessary for graphing the spo 2 and peep and / or fio 2 or a function of spo 7 and peep versus time and / or a function of spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep versus time and for displaying the determined graph on a display screen . in an alternative embodiment , the graph module 57 is part of the oximeter 62 . in another embodiment , the graph module 57 includes a processor and is a separate and independent component from the controller 50 . in a further embodiment , controller 50 issues an alarm based on the graphed information to notify the operator , patient , and / or medical caregiver that the patient requires assistance or a change in ventilator parameters and / or features is desirable . for example , if the function of spo 2 and peep and / or fio 2 falls below or above a preset threshold in a patient , the controller 50 may execute an alarm . the alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue supplemental to the graphed information that notifies the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver of a preset threshold breach . in another example , controller 50 determines if the peep of patient 24 drops before a drop in spo 2 , such as could occur in response to a clinician lowering peep . in this embodiment , if controller 50 determines that peep dropped before a drop in spo 2 , controller 50 executes a 2 nd type spo 2 alarm , as used herein , a “ 2 nd type spo 2 alarm ” is any suitable audio and / or visual warning supplemental to the graph information that notifies the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver of a preset threshold breach with a drop in peep prior to a drop in spo 2 . as used herein , a “ 3 rd type spo 2 alarm ” is any suitable audio and / or visual warning supplemental to the graph information that notifies the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver of a preset threshold breach with a drop in fio 2 prior to a drop in spo 2 . in yet another example . the controller 50 determines if spo 2 drops independently of a change in peep and / or fio 2 . if controller 50 determines a drop in spo 2 independent of a change in peep and / or fio 2 , the controller 50 executes a first type oxygen saturation or 1 st type spo 2 alarm . as used herein , a “ 1 st type spo 2 alarm ” is any suitable audio and / or visual warning supplemental to the graph information that notifies the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver of a preset threshold breach with a drop in spo 2 independent of a change in peep and / or fio 2 . in another embodiment , the ventilator may alarm if the plotted parameter exceeds the preset threshold . the alarm may include a visual cue and / or an audio cue . further , the alarm may offer different levels or degrees of visual cues and / or audio cues depending upon the severity of the preset threshold breach . controller 50 is operatively coupled with pneumatic system 22 , signal measurement and acquisition systems , and an operator interface 52 , which may be provided to enable an operator to interact with the ventilator 20 ( e . g ., change ventilator settings , select operational modes , view monitored parameters , e ( c .). in one embodiment , controller 50 is operatively coupled with a spo 2 controller , peep controller , and / or fio 2 controller . controller 50 may include memory 54 , one or more processors 56 , storage 58 , and / or other components of the type commonly found in command and control computing devices . the memory 54 is non - transitory computer - readable storage media that stores software that is executed by the processor 56 and which controls the operation of the ventilator 20 . in an embodiment , the memory 54 comprises one or more solid - state storage devices such as flash memory chips . in an alternative embodiment , the memory 54 may be mass storage connected to the processor 56 through a mass storage controller ( not shown ) and a communications bus ( not shown ). although the description of non - transitory computer - readable media contained herein refers to a solid - state storage , it should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that non - transitory computer - readable storage media can be any available media that can be accessed by the processor 56 . non - transitory computer - readable storage media includes volatile and non - volatile , removable and non - removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer - readable instructions , data structures , program modules or other data . non - transitory computer - readable storage media includes , but is not limited to , ram , rom , eprom , eeprom , flash memory or other solid state memory technology , cd - rom , dvd , or other optical storage , magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices , or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by the processor 56 . the controller 50 issues commands to pneumatic system 22 in order to control the breathing assistance provided to the patient 24 by the ventilator 20 . the specific commands may be based on inputs received from patient 24 , pneumatic system 22 and sensors , operator interface 52 and / or other components of the ventilator 20 . in the depicted example , operator interface 52 includes a display 59 that is touch - sensitive , enabling the display 59 to serve both as an input user interface and an output device . the display 59 can display any type of ventilation information , such as sensor readings , parameters , commands , alarms , warnings , and smart prompts ( i . e ., ventilator determined operator suggestions ). in this embodiment , display 59 further displays oximeter and ventilator information , such as a graph of spo 2 in relation to peep versus time . in an alternative embodiment , an oximeter display or monitor displays oximeter and ventilator information , such as a graph of spo 2 in relation to peep versus time . in another embodiment , display 59 further displays oximeter and ventilator information , such as a graph of spo 2 in relation to peep and fio 2 versus time . in an alternative embodiment , an oximeter display or monitor displays oximeter and ventilator information , such as a graph of spo 2 in relation to peep and fio 2 versus time . as illustrated in fig2 a and 2b , an embodiment of a method 200 for managing the ventilation of a patient being ventilated by a medical ventilator is shown . method 200 performs a patient monitoring operation 202 , the patient monitoring operation 202 utilizes an oximeter to monitor the status of a patient during ventilation , the oximeter is operatively coupled to the controller of the ventilation system . next , method 200 performs a spo 2 monitoring operation 204 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 204 determines the spo 2 of the patient from patient data gathered by patient monitoring operation 202 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 204 can be performed by the oximeter and / or the ventilator by utilizing oximeter sensor readings to monitor the spo 2 of the patient . further , method 200 performs a peep monitoring operation 206 . the peep monitoring operation 206 monitors the peep of the patient during ventilation . the peep monitoring operation 206 may monitor the peep of the patient with one or more flow and / or pressure sensors depending on the configuration of the ventilator . the reading from the flow and / or pressure sensors may be utilized , to monitor the peep of the patient . method 200 performs a graphing operation 208 . the graphing operation 208 graphs spo 2 and peep versus time . in one embodiment , graphing operation 208 graphs peep and spo 2 as separate lines on one graph , in an alternative embodiment , graphing operation 208 calculates a function of peep and spo 2 and graphs this number as one line verse time . the function of spo 2 and peep may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio and / or any other mathematical relationship between of the separate readings . in one embodiment , the graphing operation 208 is performed by a controller , further , the controller may include a graphing module for receiving and interpreting the peep and spo 2 data to correctly graph this data verse time . the graphing operation 208 converts the peep and spo 2 data into graphable information and displayable information . method 200 also performs a display operation 210 . display operation 210 displays the graph created by graphing operation 208 . the displaying operation 210 may display the graph on a display in the oximeter . and / or ventilator . as illustrated in fig6 through 11 , an embodiment of a graph of a function of spo 2 and peep or separate spo 2 and peep readings of a patient on a medical ventilator versus time as displayed on a display screen is shown . in one embodiment , as illustrated in fig2 b , method 200 further performs a preset threshold display operation 212 . the preset threshold display operation 212 displays at least one preset threshold on the graph displayed by display operation 210 . the preset threshold provides the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver with a quick reference point to determine the status of the patient during ventilation . in an embodiment , preset threshold display operation 212 displays an upper and a lower preset threshold limit on the graphed function of spo 2 and peep or each reading individually . preset threshold display operation 212 may depict a preset threshold with color , symbols , lines , light , and / or text . the preset threshold may be preset by the operator , configured into the ventilator based on the ventilator settings , and / or selected by the operator . as illustrated in fig2 b , method 200 may further perform a preset threshold determination operation 214 . the preset threshold . determination operation 214 determines if peep , spo 2 , and / or a function of peep and spo 2 exceeds a preset threshold . if preset threshold determination operation 214 determines that peep , spo 2 , and / or a function of peep and spo 2 exceeds a preset threshold , preset threshold determination operation 214 has method 200 perform peep determination operation 216 . if preset threshold determination operation 214 determines that peep , spo 2 , and / or a function of peep and spo 2 do not exceed a preset threshold , preset threshold determination operation 214 has method 200 perform patient monitoring operation 202 again . as illustrated in fig2 b , method 200 may further perform a peep determination operation 216 , the peep determination operation 216 determines if peep changes prior to a spo 2 drop after preset threshold determination operation 214 determines that a preset threshold had been exceeded . if peep determination operation 216 determines that peep changed prior to a spo 2 drop , peep determination operation 216 has method 200 perform a 2 nd type spo 2 alarm operation 218 . if peep determination operation 216 determines that spo 2 dropped independently of a change in peep , peep determination operation 216 has method 200 perform a 1 st type spo 2 alarm operation 220 . as illustrated in fig2 b , method . 200 may perform a 2 nd type spo 2 alarm operation 218 . second type spo 2 alarm operation 218 executes a specific alarm that notifies the operator that a preset threshold was exceeded during which peep change ( prior to a drop in spo 2 . the 2 nd type spo 2 alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue . as illustrated in fig2 b , method 200 may perform 1 st type spo 2 alarm operation 220 . first type spo 2 alarm operation 220 executes a specific alarm that notifies the operator that a preset threshold was exceeded during which peep did not change prior to a drop in spo 2 . the 1 st type spo 2 alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue . after performing the 2 nd type spo 2 alarm operation 218 or the 1 st type spo 2 alarm operation 220 , method 200 performs patient monitoring operation 202 again . in an additional embodiment , method 200 further monitors a fio 2 level of the patient , graphs the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient as a function of the fio 2 level and peep versus time , and then displays in the graph the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient as a function of the fio 2 level and peep versus time , accordingly , method 200 may further determine that the either function is outside a preset threshold . if method 200 determines that the fio 2 of the patient dropped prior to a drop in the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient , method 200 executes a 3 rd type spo 2 alarm . alternatively , if method 200 determines that the peep of the patient dropped prior to a drop in the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient , method 200 executes a 2 rd type spo 2 alarm . in an another embodiment , if method 200 determines that the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient dropped independently of a drop in peep and / or fio 2 , then method 200 executes a first type oxygen saturation alarm . further , the step of graphing the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient as a function of the fio 2 level and peep versus time performed by method 200 can include converting peep data , oxygen saturation level data , and fio 2 data into plotted graph and into displayable information . as illustrated in fig3 , an embodiment of a method 300 for managing the ventilation of a patient being ventilated by a medical ventilator is shown . method 300 performs a patient monitoring operation 302 . the patient monitoring operation 302 utilizes an oximeter to monitor the status of a patient during ventilation . the oximeter is operatively coupled to the controller of the ventilation system . next , method 300 performs a spo 2 monitoring operation 304 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 304 determines the spo 2 of the patient based on the results of the patient monitoring operation 302 , the spo 2 monitoring operation 304 can be performed by the oximeter or the ventilator , the oximeter or the ventilator utilizes oximeter sensor readings to monitor the spo 2 of the patient . further , method 300 performs a peep monitoring operation 306 . the peep monitoring operation 306 monitors the peep of the patient during ventilation . the peep monitoring operation 306 may monitor the peep of the patient with a flow and / or pressure sensor . the reading from the flow and / or pressure sensor may be utilized to monitor the peep of the patient . method 300 performs a graphing operation 308 , the graphing operation 308 graphs spo 2 and peep versus time . in one embodiment , graphing operation 308 graphs peep and spo 2 as separate lines on one graph . in an alternative embodiment , graphing operation 308 calculates a function of peep and spo 2 and graphs this number in one line verse time . the function of spo 2 and peep may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio and / or any other mathematical relationship between the separate readings . in one embodiment , the graphing operation 308 is performed by a controller . further , the controller may include a graphing module for receiving and interpreting the peep and spo 2 data to correctly graph this data verse time . the graphing operation 308 converts the peep and spo 2 data into graphable information and displayable information . method 300 also performs : display operation 310 . display operation 310 displays the graph created by graphing step 308 . the displaying operation 310 may display the graph on a display in the oximeter and / or ventilator . as illustrated in fig6 through 11 , an embodiment of a graph of a function of spo 2 and peep or separate spo 2 and peep readings of a patient on a medical ventilator versus time as displayed on a display screen is shown . next , method 300 performs a preset threshold . display operation 312 . the preset threshold display operation 312 displays at least one preset threshold on the graph displayed by display operation 310 , the preset threshold provides the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver with a quick reference point to determine the status of the patient during ventilation , in an embodiment , preset threshold display operation 312 displays an upper and a lower preset threshold limit on the graph . preset threshold display operation 312 may depict a preset threshold with color , symbols , lines , light , and / or text . the preset threshold may be preset by the operator , configured into the ventilator based on the ventilator settings , and / or selected by the operator . further . method 300 performs a preset threshold determination operation 314 . the preset threshold determination operation 314 determines if peep , spo 2 , and / or a function of peep and spo 2 preset threshold was exceeded . if preset threshold determination operation 314 determines that a preset threshold was exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 314 has method . 300 perform an alarm operation 316 . if preset threshold determination operation 314 determines that preset threshold was not exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 314 has method 300 perform patient monitoring , operation 302 again . method 300 performs an alarm operation 316 , the alarm operation 316 executes an alarm to notify the operator that a preset threshold has been exceeded . the alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue . after performing alarm operation 316 , method 300 performs patient monitoring operation 302 again . as illustrated in fig4 , an embodiment of a method 400 for managing the ventilation of a patient being ventilated by a medical ventilator is shown , method 400 performs a patient monitoring operation 402 . the patient monitoring operation 402 utilizes an oximeter to monitor the status of a patient during ventilation . the oximeter is operatively coupled to the controller of the ventilation system . next , method 400 performs a spo 2 monitoring operation 404 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 404 determines the spo 2 of the patient based . on the results of the patient monitoring operation 402 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 404 can be performed by the oximeter and / or the ventilator . the oximeter and / or the ventilator utilize oximeter sensor readings to monitor the spo 2 of the patient . further , method 400 performs a peep monitoring operation 406 . the peep monitoring operation 406 monitors the peep of the patient during ventilation . the peep monitoring operation 406 may monitor the peep of the patient with a flow and / or pressure sensor . the reading from the flow and / or pressure sensor may be utilized to monitor the peep of the patient . further , method 400 performs a fio 2 monitoring operation 407 . the fio 2 . monitoring operation 402 monitors the fio 2 of the patient during ventilation . the fio 2 monitoring operation 402 may monitor the fio 2 of the patient with a gas sensor and / or a flow and / or . pressure sensor . the reading from the gas sensor may be utilized to monitor the fio 2 of the patient . method 400 performs a graphing operation 408 , the graphing operation 408 graphs spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep versus time . in one embodiment , graphing operation 408 graphs peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 as separate lines on one graph . in an alternative embodiment , graphing operation 408 calculates a function of peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 and graphs this number in one line verse time . the function of fio 2 , spo 2 and peep may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio and / or any other mathematical relationship between the separate readings . in one embodiment , the graphing operation 408 is performed by a controller . the controller may be located in the oximeter and / or the ventilator . further , the controller may include a graphing module for receiving and interpreting the peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 data to correctly graph this data verse time . the graphing operation 408 converts the peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 data into graphable information and displayable information . method 400 also performs a display operation 410 . display operation 410 displays the graph created by graphing step 408 . the displaying operation 410 may display the graph on a display in the oximeter and / or ventilator , as illustrated in fig1 and 13 , an embodiment of a graph of a function of fio 2 , spo 2 and peep or separate spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep readings of a patient on a medical ventilator versus time as displayed on a display screen is shown . next , method 400 performs a preset threshold display operation 412 , the preset threshold display operation 412 displays at least one preset threshold on the graph displayed by display operation 408 , the preset threshold provides the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver with a quick reference point to determine the status of the patient during ventilation . in an embodiment , preset threshold display operation 412 displays an upper and a lower preset threshold limit on the graph , preset threshold display operation 412 may depict a preset threshold with color , symbols , lines , light , and / or text . the preset threshold may be preset by the operator , configured into the ventilator based on the ventilator settings , and / or selected by the operator . further , method 400 performs a preset threshold determination operation 414 . the preset threshold determination operation 414 determines if a peep , fio 2 , spo 2 , and / or a function of peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 preset threshold was exceeded . if preset threshold determination operation 414 determines that a preset threshold was exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 414 has method 400 perform an alarm operation 416 . if preset threshold determination operation 414 determines that a preset threshold was not exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 414 has method 400 perform patient monitoring operation 402 again , method 400 performs an alarm operation 416 , the alarm operation 416 executes an alarm to notify the operator that a preset threshold has been exceeded . the alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue . after performing alarm operation 416 , method 400 performs patient monitoring operation 402 again . as illustrated in fig5 , an embodiment of a method 500 for managing the ventilation of a patient being ventilated by a medical ventilator is shown , method 500 performs a patient monitoring operation 502 . the patient monitoring operation 502 utilizes an oximeter to monitor the status of a patient during ventilation . the oximeter is operatively coupled to the controller of the ventilation system . next , method 500 performs a spo 2 monitoring operation 504 , the spo 2 monitoring operation 504 determines the spo 2 of the patient based on the data gathered by the patient monitoring operation 502 . the spo 2 monitoring operation 504 can be performed by the oximeter or the ventilator , the oximeter or the ventilation utilizes oximeter sensor readings to monitor the spo 2 of the patient . further , method 500 performs a fio 2 monitoring operation 506 . the fio 2 monitoring operation 506 monitors the fio 2 of the patient during ventilation . the fio 2 monitoring operation 506 may monitor the fio 2 of the patient with a gas sensor and / or a flow and / or pressure sensor . the reading from the gas sensor may be utilized to monitor the fio 2 of the patient . method 500 performs a graphing operation 508 . the graphing operation 508 graphs spo 2 and fio 2 versus time . in one embodiment , graphing operation 508 graphs fio 2 and spo 2 as separate lines on one graph . in an alternative embodiment , graphing operation 508 calculates a function of fio 2 and spo 2 and graphs this number in one line verse time , the function of spo 2 and fio 2 may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , and / or ratio of the separate readings , in one embodiment , the graphing operation 508 is performed by a controller . the controller may be located in the oximeter and / or the ventilator . further , the controller may include a graphing module for receiving and interpreting the raw fio 2 and spo 2 data to correctly graph this data verse time . the graphing operation 508 converts the raw fio 2 and spo 2 data into graphable information and displayable information . method 500 also performs a display operation 510 . display operation 510 displays the graph created by graphing step 508 . the displaying operation 510 may display the graph on a display in the oximeter , and / or ventilator . next , method 500 performs a preset threshold display operation 512 . the preset threshold display operation 512 displays at least one preset threshold on the graph displayed by display operation 508 , the preset threshold provides the patient , operator , and / or medical care giver with a quick reference point to determine the status of the patient during ventilation . in an embodiment , preset threshold display operation 512 displays an upper and a lower preset threshold limit on the graph , preset threshold display operation 512 may depict a preset threshold with color , symbols , lines , light , and / or text . the preset threshold may be preset by the operator , configured into the ventilator based on the ventilator settings , and / or selected by the operator . further , method 500 performs a preset threshold determination operation 514 . the preset threshold determination operation 514 determines if a fio 2 , spo 2 , and / or a function of fio 2 and spo 2 preset threshold was exceeded . if preset threshold determination operation 514 determines that a preset threshold was exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 514 has method . 500 perform an alarm operation 516 . if preset threshold determination operation 514 determines that preset threshold was not exceeded , preset threshold determination operation 514 has method 500 perform patient monitoring , operation 502 again . method 500 performs an alarm operation 516 . the alarm operation 516 executes an alarm to notify the operator that a preset threshold has been exceeded . the alarm may be any visual and / or audio cue . after performing alarm operation 516 , method 500 performs patient monitoring operation 502 again . in alternative embodiment , a computer - readable medium having computer - executable instructions for performing a method for managing the ventilation of a patient being ventilated by a medical ventilator is disclosed . the method includes repeatedly performing the steps disclosed in method 200 , method 300 , method 400 , or method 500 . in another embodiment , a medical ventilator system is disclosed . the medical ventilator includes means for repeatedly monitoring a patient during ventilation with an oximeter , means for repeatedly monitoring an oxygen saturation level of blood in the patient during ventilation , means for repeatedly monitoring a peep level of the patient , means for repeatedly graphing the oxygen saturation level of the blood in the patient as a function of the peep level versus time , and means for repeatedly displaying a graph of the function versus time . in one embodiment , the means for the medical ventilator system are all illustrated in fig1 and description above in the description of fig1 . however , the means described above for fig1 and illustrated in fig1 are exemplary only and are not meant to be limiting . the following are embodiments of graphs that can be displayed on a display screen of a medical ventilator or an oximeter that graphs peep and spo 2 versus time . the following are embodiments of graphs that depict peep and spo 2 as separate lines versus time that can be displayed on a display screen . a display may show a graph with an upper and lower preset threshold for two separate lines depicting the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 and peep during ventilation versus time in seconds as illustrated in fig7 , 8 , and 11 . as shown in fig7 , both peep and spo 2 remain within the upper and lower preset thresholds depicted by the shaded areas , fig8 illustrates a preset threshold that was exceeded first by a drop in peep and followed by a drop in spo 2 . the appropriate scales for peep and spo 2 may be displayed in any conventional manner . fig1 illustrates a preset threshold that was exceeded first by a drop in spo 2 and then followed by a drop in peep . fig1 further illustrates a visual alarm icon that indicates that a preset threshold was exceeded first by a drop in spo 2 followed by a drop in peep . as illustrated in fig1 , the visual alarm cue is a colored star that flashes in the corner of the graph . this alarm is exemplary only and does not limit the disclosure . the following are embodiments of graphs that depict a function of spo 2 and peep versus time that can be displayed on display screen . the function of spo 2 and peep may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio , and / or any other mathematical relationship between the parameters . for example , in an embodiment , peep and spo 2 for any given period . ( e . g ., for each monitoring cycle of 5 ms or for a group of monitoring cycles ) are multiplied resulting in a graph of p peep * o 2 % v . time . however , any function of peep and spo 2 of clinical value may be used . a display may show a graph with an upper and lower preset threshold for the function of the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 and peep during ventilation verse time in seconds . in an alternative example , a display may show a graph with only a lower preset threshold and one line depicting the function of the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 and peep during ventilation verse time in seconds as illustrated in fig9 and 10 . the lower preset threshold is the shaded . area in the graphs illustrated in fig9 and 10 . fig9 and 10 further illustrate visual alarm icons that indicate that a preset threshold was exceeded by a drop in spo 2 independently of a change in peep or was exceeded first by a drop in peep followed by a drop in spo 2 . as illustrated in fig1 , the visual alarm icon is a colored star that flashes in the corner of the graph when a preset threshold is exceeded by a drop in spo 2 independently of a change in peep . as illustrated in fig9 , the visual alarm icon is a colored circle that flashes in the corner of the graph when the preset threshold was exceeded first by a drop in peep followed by a drop in spo 2 . these alarms are exemplary only and do not limit the disclosure . the following are embodiments of graphs that can be displayed on a display screen of a medical ventilator or an oximeter that graphs peep , fio 2 and spo 2 versus time the following is an embodiment of a graph that depicts peep , fio 2 and spo 2 as separate lines versus time that can be displayed on a display screen . a display may show a graph with an upper and lower preset threshold for three separate lines depicting the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep during ventilation versus time in seconds as illustrated in fig . as shown in fig1 a preset threshold that was exceeded first by a drop in peep and followed by a drop in spo 2 . the appropriate scales for peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 may be displayed in any conventional manner . the following is an embodiment of a graph that depicts a function of spo 2 , peep , and fio 2 versus time that can be displayed on a display screen . the function of spo 2 , peep and fio 2 may be the multiplication , addition , subtraction , ratio , and / or any other mathematical relationship between the parameters . for example , in an embodiment , peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 for any given period ( e . g ., for each monitoring cycle of 5 ms or for a group of monitoring cycles ) are multiplied resulting in a graph of p fio2 * p peep * o 2 % v . time . however , any function of peep , fio 2 , and spo 2 of clinical value may he used . a display may show a graph with an upper and / or lower preset threshold for the function of the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep during ventilation versus time in seconds . fig1 illustrates a graph displaying a lower preset threshold for the function of the patient &# 39 ; s spo 2 , fio 2 , and peep during ventilation versus time in seconds . as shown in fig4 , the function of peep and spo 2 exceeds the lower preset threshold depicted by the shaded areas activating an alarm icon ( i . e . a colored star icon ). the displayed alarm is exemplary only and does not limit the disclosure . numerous other changes may be made which will readily suggest themselves to those skilled in the art and which are encompassed in the spirit of the disclosure and as defined in the appended claims . for example , in the embodiments of the methods described herein various operations and steps could be combined into a single operation ( e . g ., a single monitoring operation ) or the operations could be performed in a different order or as parallel operations . while various embodiments have been described for purposes of this disclosure , various changes and modifications may be made which are well within the scope of the present invention . numerous other changes may be made which will readily suggest themselves to those skilled in the art and which are encompassed in the spirit of the disclosure and as defined in the appended claims .	0
referring to the drawing and initially to fig1 this invention will be described in the context of a power drive train such as is commonly found in tracked vehicles . an engine 10 provides a source of power which drives a transmission 12 which in turn provides forward and reverse power to final drives 14 . in a track laying vehicle , the final drives will be cogged wheels which engage the track . such a drive structure is known in the art . the various components of the system are joined by coupled shafts designated generally 18 . fig2 and 3 show the coupling 18 of this invention in greater detail . a first powered shaft 20 provides the power input to be transmitted to a driven shaft 22 . as shown , the shafts are journaled for rotary motion within frame members 24 , 26 which are attached to the vehicle , not shown . the mounting of the shafts within the vehicle are within the skill of the art as to bearings and the like and a further discussion is omitted in the interest of brevity . the first , powered shaft 20 , has a cylindrical bore 28 which has a plurality of longitudinally extending channels 30 disposed within . the channels are incised or formed so they extend radially into the shaft as shown most distinctly in fig3 . the second driven shaft 22 has a cylindrical bore 32 which has a second plurality of channels 34 within the bore . the channels 34 and 30 have a one to one correspondence with each channel in one bore having its complimentary channel in the other bore . a sliding core 36 is disposed within the chamber formed by the cylindrical bores 32 , 28 when the ends 38 , 40 of the shafts are brought into juxtaposition . the core 36 has a plurality of longitudinally disposed , radially extending splines formed on the circumference of the core body 44 ; the splines have a one to one correspondence with the channels 30 , 34 . when the core 36 is in a bridging position , as shown in fig2 the shafts 20 , 22 are locked with respect to rotation so that power applied to shaft 20 is applied to shaft 22 . as shown , the core is splined and the channels are in the shafts . the reverse configuration will also provide a workable coupling . further , the spline configuration number and size should be adjusted to bear the torque placed on the interface between the shaft and core . to disengage the shafts , the core 36 can be moved so it is drawn into the bore 28 and is out of contact with the channels 34 of bore 32 . in this position the shafts are totally separated and one or more of the drive train &# 39 ; s components can be removed from the drive train for repair and replacement . as illustrated , the means for moving the sliding core 36 is a rack and pinion gear set . the rack 44 is formed on the upper surface of core 36 the rack extending longitudinally along the core . a mating pinion gear 46 has teeth 47 which mesh with the rack 44 . the pinion gear 46 is mounted on a rotating adjustment pin 48 . the pin 48 is mounted in a sink 49 and journaled for rotation in a tunnel 50 . a polymeric plug 51 is mounted within the shaft 20 . when the pin 48 is inserted , the plug will be compressed thereby applying a force to the pin which will hinder longitudinal and rotational movement of the pin but allow the pin to be easily rotated with an ordinary hand tool . a section has been removed from the outer surface of shaft 20 to form a recess 52 . one end of the pin 48 has a gripping portion or surface 54 formed thereon , the gripping surface being disposed in recess 52 where it can be engaged by a tool to rotate the pin 48 and thereby pinion 46 . the rotation will move the sliding core 36 longitudinally within the chamber formed by the bores 28 and 32 . the pinion 46 is keyed to the pin 48 by means of a key 56 to prevent rotation of the pinion on the pin but allow assembly and disassembly . although the mechanism for moving the core between the coupled and uncoupled position is shown in the driven shaft it could be located in either shaft . further , the shaft coupling has been described with reference to a power transmission . the device of this assembly could be used in other environments where the coupling should have a diameter substantially the same diameter as the shaft and it is necessary to separate the shafts for repair and replacement . as shown , there is a gap between the shafts which would allow some longitudinal movement of the shafts without effecting the performance of the coupling . i wish it to be understood that i do not desire to be limited to the exact details of construction shown and described for obvious modifications will occur to a person skilled in the art , without departing from the spirit and scope of the appended claims .	5
after studying the discharging features of the batteries , a unique set of operational modes especially suitable for the dc — dc converter in the ups system is elaborated in the present invention firstly . according to these operational modes , a method is proposed , in which the exciting current of the transformer is employed to accomplish the zero - voltage switching of the switches at the primary side of the push - pull converter when the ups system has a relatively heavy load or the ups system has a light load but the battery is at the late stage of the discharge , to decrease the switching losses of the proposed zvs push - pull converter and to increase the efficiency of the ups system relatively . for a dc — dc converter disposed on the ups system , the voltage regulation of its &# 39 ; outputs within certain range is not necessary since the output voltage regulation of the ups system could be guaranteed by the inverter in the second stage circuit . according to this concept , a unique set of operational modes of the dc — dc converter disposed on the ups system is elaborated as follows : 1 . when the input voltage is lower than a certain value ( v set ), the ups system is operated under the fix - duty ratio mode , the duty ratio is fixed at a relatively higher value ( approximately 0 . 5 ), and the output voltage becomes higher following the increasing of the input voltage . 2 . when the input voltage is higher than a certain value ( v set ), the ups system is operated under the pwm voltage - regulating mode and the output voltage is fixed at a pre - determined value ( v st ). the aforementioned operational modes of the dc — dc converter disposed on the ups system are shown in fig4 . in which , “ a ” indicates the fix - duty ratio mode , and “ b ” indicates the pwm voltage - regulating mode . knowing from observing the discharging curve of the battery , if the discharging rate of the battery is relatively lower , the output voltages of the battery could be maintained at a relatively higher value for a relatively longer period during the prior stage of the discharging , and the output voltage of the battery dropped quickly at the late stage of the discharging . however , if the discharging rate of the battery is relatively higher even just for a relatively short period , the output voltage of the battery would drop quickly at the late stage of the discharging , although the output voltage of the battery is maintained at a relatively lower value during the prior stage of the discharging . during the prior stage of the battery discharging , if the ups system has a relatively heavy load , the discharging rate of the battery is relatively higher , and the output voltages of the battery would be kept at a relatively lower level . if the ups system has a relatively light load , the discharging rate of the battery is relatively lower , and the output voltages of the battery would be kept at a relatively higher level . during the late stage of the battery discharging , no matter the ups system has a relatively heavy or light load , the output voltages of the battery would be kept at a relatively lower level . combining the above observations with the special operational mode of the dc — dc converter disposed on the ups system , the following corresponding relationships are found : 1 . if the ups system has a relatively heavy lord or the ups system has a relatively light load and the battery is at the late stage of the discharging , the dc — dc converter is operated under the fix - duty ratio mode , which corresponds to the “ a ” stage of fig4 ( the duty ratio is approximately 0 . 5 ); 2 . if the ups system has a relatively light load and the battery is at the prior stage of the discharging , the dc — dc converter is operated under the pwm voltage - regulating mode , which corresponds to the “ b ” stage of fig4 . please refer to fig5 , which is the schematic circuit diagram of the first preferred embodiment of the proposed zvs push - pull converter of the present invention . in which , c s1 , c s2 , d s1 , and d s2 could be one of the parasite capacitors and diodes of the switches s 1 and s 2 respectively , external components , and the combinations of the above two . in fig5 , l s3 and l s4 are desired to have certain inductances respectively , and which could be achieved by the combination of the inductances of the external inductors and the leakage inductance between the primary and the secondary windings of the transformer . to decrease the amount of the magnetic elements in the real dc — dc converter , if the leakage inductance value between the primary and the secondary windings of the transformer is relatively higher enough , the above - mentioned external inductors could be omitted which could be accomplished by improving the design of the transformer . while the transformer is manufactured , the relatively good coupling between the two windings of the primary side could be achieved by winding the two windings synchronously , and the coupling between the primary and the secondary windings of the transformer could become relatively worse by increasing an extra magnetic path in the transformer purposely to achieve the goal of increasing the leakage inductance . please refer to fig6 , which shows the waveforms versus time periods diagram of the aforementioned operational modes according to the first preferred embodiment of the present invention . in which , the symbols represent the same meanings and reference directions as those shown in fig5 . assume that the load of the dc — dc converter is relatively heavy , the converter is operated under the fix - duty ratio mode and the duty ratio is approximately 0 . 5 . each switching cycle of the dc — dc converter could be divided into twelve operational stages . the last six stages are totally symmetrical to the first six stages . therefore , only the first six stages are briefly analyzed as follows . stage 1 ( t 0 ˜ t 1 ): the main switch s 1 is turned on , and the electrical power is supplied from the power source to the load . the diodes d 2 and d 3 are conductive , i 1 = i in , and i l1 = i l2 = i d2 = i d3 =− i t . stage 2 ( t 1 ˜ t 2 ): at the moment of t 1 , the main switch s 1 is turned off . since the coupling between the two windings of the primary side is relatively good , the current of the primary side of the transformer becomes to flow through the two windings simultaneously instead of only one winding , i 2 =− i 1 , and i in = 0 . affected by both the exciting current of the transformer and the current on the load , the capacitor c s1 begins to be charged , and the value of v s1 begins to increase from zero . meanwhile , the capacitor c s2 begins to discharge , and the value of v s2 begins to decrease from twice that of the battery voltage ( 2v bat ). due to the time constant has a relatively higher value and the time period is relatively short in this stage , we could assume that the i l1 , i d2 , and i t are kept unchanged basically . at the moment of t 2 , v s1 = v s2 = v bat , and the voltage drop on the windings of the transformer is zero . meanwhile , the diodes d 1 and d 4 become conductive . if the values of l s3 and l s4 are relatively small , and could be totally neglected , then the windings of the secondary side of the transformer are short - circuited and the voltage drop on the windings of the secondary side of the transformer is clamped at the zero volts . the conditions that v s1 = v s2 = v bat are kept unchanged until the trigging pulse signal of s 2 is available , thus the switch s 2 could not be turned on under such a circumstances . if the leakage inductance of the transformer becomes large enough , the proposed converter circuit would go into stage 3 . stage 3 ( t 2 ˜ t 3 ): at the moment of t 2 , v s1 = v s2 = v bat , and the voltage drop on the windings of the transformer is zero , the diodes d 1 and d 4 become conductive , i d2 and i d3 begin to decrease slowly , i d1 and i d4 begin to increase slowly , i l1 = i d1 + i d2 , i t = i d1 − i d3 (= i d1 − i d2 ), and i t is still smaller than zero . since l s3 and l s4 have certain inductance values , the secondary side of the transformer would not be short - circuited because of the two diodes d 1 and d 4 become conductive simultaneously . meanwhile , the capacitor c s1 continues to be charged , and the capacitor c s2 continues to discharge . since the load current count on the primary side of the transformer has the decreasing trend , the rates of change of the voltages across capacitors c s1 and c s2 are decreased respectively . at the moment of t 3 , v s1 = 2v bat , and v s2 = 0 . stage 4 ( t 3 ˜ t 4 ): at the moment of t3 , v s2 = 0 , the diode d s2 becomes conductive , and the condition for the zero - voltage turning on of the switch s 2 is created . during this period , i d2 and i d3 are decreased continuously , and i d1 and i d4 are increased continuously . at the moment of t 4 , i d1 = i d2 = i d3 = i d4 , and i t = 0 . stage 5 ( t 4 ˜ t 5 ): at the moment of t 4 , all the currents , which flow through the rectifier diodes on the secondary side , are equivalent . after that , i t = i d1 − i d2 & gt ; 0 , and the direction of the current on the secondary side of the transformer is changed . at the moment of t 5 , the diode d s2 is turned off by zero current . stage 6 ( t 5 ˜ t 6 ): the main switch s 2 is turned on under zero voltage . during this period , i d2 and i d3 are decreased continuously , and i d1 and i d4 are increased continuously . at the moment of t 6 , i l1 = i l2 = i d1 = i d4 = i t , and i d2 = i d3 = 0 . after the moment of t 6 , the electrical power is supplied from the power source to the load , and the second half switching cycle of the dc — dc converter begins . since the last six stages are totally symmetrical to the first six stages , which are skipped for the time being . the aforementioned operational procedures are acquired under the circumstances that the proposed dc — dc converter is operated while the ups system has a relatively heavy load . if the ups system has a relatively light load and the battery is at the relatively late stage of the discharging , the output voltage value of the battery would be relatively lower , dc — dc converter is operated under the fix - duty ratio mode , the duty ratio is approximately 0 . 5 , and the zero - voltage switching of the switches on the primary side of the proposed push - pull converter could also be accomplished . if the ups system has a relatively light load and the battery is at the relatively prior stage of the discharging , the output voltage value of the battery would be relatively higher , dc — dc converter is operated under the pwm voltage - regulating mode , and the duty ratio is apparently smaller . when the proposed push - pull converter is operated at the moment of t 5 , the driving pulse of the switch s 2 is not sent out yet due to the duty ratio of the proposed push - pull converter is relatively lower , thus the current would flow through c s2 again and make the voltage across the two terminals of switch s 2 begin to rise . by the same token , the current would flow through c s1 again and make the voltage across the two terminals of switch s 1 begin to drop from 2v bat , thus the oscillations would be generated in the loop such that the switch s 2 does not have the proper conditions for the zero - voltage switching any more . but due to the ups system has a relatively light load , the proposed push - pull converter would have a relatively less losses firstly . besides , the battery is at the relatively prior stage of the discharging such that the operational time of the proposed push - pull converter is relatively short secondly . thus , the above - mentioned situation will not cause too much concerns regarding the heat - dissipating design of the ups system . as shown in fig5 , the proposed push - pull converter is applicable to the dc — dc converter of the ups system . the outputs of the proposed push - pull converter are coupled to the positive and negative dc buses respectively . besides , there are center - tapped windings respectively composed of two windings both having an equal number of turns on the primary and the secondary sides of the transformer . furthermore , a single - phase bridge rectifier circuit ( which could be decomposed as two half - wave rectifier circuits ) is coupled to the secondary side of the transformer . lastly , the output of the bridge rectifier circuit and the center tap of the secondary side are coupled to the positive and negative dc buses please refer to fig7 , which shows the schematic circuit diagram of the second preferred embodiment of the present invention . the proposed circuit is also applicable to the dc — dc converter of the ups system and the outputs of this zvs push - pull converter are couple to a dc bus . firstly , there are center - tapped windings respectively composed of two windings both having an equal number of turns on the primary and the secondary sides of the transformer too . besides , there is a dual half - wave rectifier circuit coupled to the secondary side of the transformer . lastly , the dc output of the rectifier circuit is coupled to the dc bus . please refer to fig8 , which shows the schematic circuit diagram of the third preferred embodiment of the present invention . this circuit is applicable to the dc — dc converter of the ups system and the output of the proposed zvs push - pull converter is couple to a dc bus too . besides , there are center - tapped winding composed of two windings both having an equal number of turns on the primary side and a single winding on the secondary side of the transformer respectively . furthermore , there is a single - phased bridge rectifier circuit coupled to the secondary side of the transformer . lastly , the dc output of the rectifier circuit is coupled to the dc bus . please refer to fig9 , which shows the schematic circuit diagram of the fourth preferred embodiment of the present invention . again , the proposed circuit is applicable to the dc — dc converter of the ups system and the output of this zvs push - pull converter is couple to a dc bus . there are also center - tapped winding composed of two windings both having an equal number of turns on the primary side and a single winding on the secondary side of the transformer respectively . besides , a double - current rectifier circuit is coupled to the secondary side of the transformer . lastly , the dc output of the rectifier circuit is coupled to the dc bus . in the battery mode of the ups system , the exciting current of the transformer is employed in the proposed method to accomplish the zero - voltage switching of the switches at the primary side of the push - pull converter when the ups system has a relatively heavy load or the ups system has a relatively light load but the battery is at the relatively late stage of the discharging according to the aforementioned unique operational modes inspired by analyzing the discharging features of the batteries . the proposed zvs push - pull converters are especially appropriate for applying to the circuits which are powered by the batteries and do not need the voltage regulation for their outputs within a certain range . in conclusion , the proposed push - pull converters are applicable to the dc — dc converter of the ups system employing the battery as the power supply and have the distinct advantages of relatively decreasing the switching losses of the circuit and increasing the efficiency of the ups system . while the invention has been described in terms of what are presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiments , it is to be understood that the invention need not be limited to the disclosed embodiment . on the contrary , it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures . therefore , the above description and illustration should not be taken as limiting the scope of the present invention which is defined by the appended claims .	8
with reference to fig1 , a computer system 100 includes a computer 101 loaded with an operating system 102 and a virtual machine ( vm ) processing environment in the form of java ™ ( java and all java - based trademarks and logos are trademarks of sun microsystems , inc . in the united states , other countries or both ) runtime environment ( jre ) 103 . the jre 103 provides a java ™ virtual machine ( jvm ) 104 arranged to process a java ™ program 105 , which in the present embodiment , is augmented with in - line trace code elements 106 . the trace code elements 106 are arranged to provide selected trace data 107 when the program 105 is run . the computer system 100 further includes a trace data controller ( tdc ) 108 , which is arranged to control the enabling or disabling of the trace code elements 106 in accordance with a group of settings 109 . in the present embodiment , the settings are determined in response to user input via a user interface ( ui ) 110 . with reference to fig2 , when the jvm 104 processes the java ™ program 105 a call stack 201 is created within the jvm 104 . the call stack 201 , shown schematically in fig2 , defines the pattern of calls and returns between subroutines over a period of the processing of the program 105 . the trace data controller ( tdc ) 108 is arranged to monitor the processing of the program 105 for the processing of a predetermined trigger code element 202 , that is , a predetermined subroutine within the code . in response to the processing of the trigger code element 202 , the tdc 108 is arranged to enable the trace code elements 106 in each other subroutine in the program 105 that either calls the trigger code element 202 or is called by the trigger code element 202 . in the present embodiment , the tdc 108 is arranged to access the call stack 201 and enable or disable the trace code element 106 via suitable application program interfaces ( apis ) provided by the jre 103 . in fig2 , the subroutines 203 calling the trigger code element 202 , either directly or indirectly , are shown above the trigger code element 202 . the subroutines 204 called by the trigger code element 202 , either directly or indirectly , are shown below the trigger code element 202 . the tdc 108 is arranged to limit enabling of the trace code elements 106 to those subroutines within a predetermined call depth 205 , 206 relative to the trigger code element 202 . in the example of fig2 , the enabling of the trace code elements 106 is limited to those subroutines within 2 calls or returns relative to the trigger code element 202 . in fig2 , only those subroutines within the trace call depth limit 205 , 206 are shown . the tdc 108 is arranged to further restrict the enabling of the trace code elements 106 by excluding a predetermined set of subroutines 207 even if those excluded subroutines 207 are within the trace call depth limit 205 , 206 . with reference to fig3 , the trace controller settings 109 are used to store an identification of the trigger code element 202 and the positive and negative call depths 205 , 206 . the settings 109 also define the excluded subroutines 207 , which in the present embodiment , are defined in terms of java ™ packages . in addition , any exceptions from the excluded packages , that are required to be traced , are defined in an included subroutine setting 301 . the settings 109 further provide a trace period 302 for limiting the time for which the trace code elements 106 in the relevant subroutines are enabled . the tdc 108 is arranged to sample the stack 201 continually since the subroutines present on the stack change over time . in the present embodiment , the frequency of the stack sampling is determined by the time taken to process the previous stack sample . the position or presence of the trigger code element 202 may vary along with the subroutines that fall within the trace call depth limit 205 , 206 . thus , the trace code elements 106 that are enabled may vary over time , based on the state of the stack 201 in a given stack sample . in addition , a plurality of occurrences of the trigger code element 202 may be present in a given stack sample . in this case , the tdc 108 is arranged to enable the trace code elements for all subroutines that fall within the trace call depth limit 205 , 206 of each such occurrence . fig4 shows a sample of the call stack for an instance of the websphere ™ application server application program from the ibm ™ corporation . in this sample , the trigger code element 202 is a method named : the trace call depth limit 205 , 206 is set to ± 2 . in this example , assuming all subroutines are augmented with respective trace code elements 106 , the following subroutines will have their trace code elements 106 enabled : however , in the example in fig4 , there are two further occurrences of the trigger code element 202 at lines + 3 and + 2 of the stack sample . hence the following further subroutines will have their respective trace code elements 106 enabled : in other words , the set of subroutines for which tracing will be enabled is the union of the three overlapping sets of lines in the given stack sample around the three occurrences of the trigger code element 202 in accordance with the specified trace call depth limit 205 , 206 , that is , the subroutines on lines + 5 to − 2 of the stack sample of fig4 . if the occurrences of the trigger code elements were further apart , the set of subroutines for which tracing would be enabled may be the union of two or more non - overlapping sets of subroutines . thus , the above six subroutines will produce trace data 107 while they remain positioned within the call depth limit 205 , 206 of their respective occurrences of the trigger code element 202 present in the stack 201 as shown in fig4 . the processing performed by the tdc 108 when monitoring the stack 201 for a given trigger code element 106 and controlling the relevant trace code elements 106 will now be described in further detail with reference to the flowchart of fig5 . at step 501 , processing of the tdc 108 is initiated in response to the processing of the program 105 and processing moves to step 502 . at step 502 , the call stack is sampled and processing moves to step 503 . at step 503 , the call stack sample is inspected for any occurrences of the trigger code element 202 and if so processing moves to step 504 . at step 504 , the set of candidate subroutines on the call stack within the trace call depth of each occurrence of the trigger code element 202 are identified and processing moves to step 505 . at step 505 any subroutines covered by the excluded subroutines setting 207 , taking into account the included subroutines setting 301 , are removed from the set of candidate subroutines and processing moves to step 506 . at step 506 , the trace code elements for each remaining subroutine in the set of candidate subroutines are enabled and processing moves to step 507 . at step 507 , the trace period is set and processing loops through steps 502 to 507 as described above until the trace period expires . when the trace period expires , processing moves to step 508 where all active trace code elements are disabled and processing moves to step 509 and ends . as will be understood by those skilled in the art , a jre is commonly arranged to process java ™ programs by interpreting the java ™ bytecode . alternatively java ™ bytecode may be processed using a just - in - time ( jit ) compiler . in another embodiment , the trace data controller ( tdc ) is arranged to monitor the processing of a software program that is compiled for processing on an operating system . the tdc is arranged to monitor and sample the call stack created by the operating system kernel when processing the compiled program . in a further embodiment , rather than the trace code elements being provided within the program code and enabled or disabled by the tdc , the tdc is arranged to insert the trace code elements into the code in response to the identification of a given trigger code element in a call stack sample . the tdc may be further arranged to remove inserted trace code elements from a given subroutine in order to disable trace for that subroutine . in another embodiment , the user interface is arranged to enable trace to be disabled in response to user command . in other words , a user may disable trace prior to the trace period having elapsed . in a further embodiment , the user interface is arranged to enable a user to remove all trace code elements from the program code . in another embodiment , no trace period is defined and the production of trace data is disabled manually . in a further embodiment , a plurality of trigger code elements are provided , each being arranged to trigger the enablement of respective trace functionality within a predetermined call depth range . in another embodiment , the call depth limit is arranged to vary over time . for example , the call depth limit may increase or decrease over time . in a further embodiment , one or more call depth bands is defined relative to the trigger code element and only subroutines within those bands may have their respective trace code element enabled . in a further embodiment , the tdc is provided as code for running within the jre so as to enable direct access for the tdc to the call stack 201 and to enable direct control of the enabling or disabling of relevant trace code elements . some embodiments may be provided in environments where method - overloading techniques are used . in such environments , embodiments may be arranged to supply the method signature for the trigger code element , including the method parameters , in the same syntax as the programming language . the method signature is then converted into the unique method signature generated by the compile / runtime environment and thereby enables the trigger code element to be distinguished from other versions of the method . other embodiments may provide rules that allow a user to specify the unique method name that is generated by the compiler , for example : to enable a user to set the trigger code element to be a method of a parameterized type , embodiments may be arranged to support multiple trigger code elements or to provide a method where a condition is specified based on the parameterized type . for example , if the trigger code element is : then either , any occurrence of “ addnode ” is a trigger code element , or the user can specify a condition such as : in some embodiments , the apparatus may be a general purpose device having software arranged to provide a part or all of the functionality described herein . the device could be a single device or a group of devices and the software could be a single program or a set of programs . furthermore , any or all of the software used to implement the embodiments can be communicated via any suitable transmission or storage means so that the software can be loaded onto one or more devices . while the present invention has been illustrated by the description of the embodiments thereof , and while the embodiments have been described in considerable detail , it is not the intention of the applicant to restrict or in any way limit the scope of the appended claims to such detail . additional advantages and modifications will readily appear to those skilled in the art , in light of the description herein . therefore , the invention in its broader aspects is not limited to the specific details representative apparatus and method , and illustrative examples shown and described . accordingly , departures may be made from such details without departure from the spirit or scope of applicant &# 39 ; s general inventive concept .	6
fig1 illustrates a preferred embodiment of a dual balloon / dual inflation path stent delivery catheter system 10 , including a valve control accessory device 11 and catheter 24 . accessory device 11 includes a main fluid line 12 and a sidebranch fluid line 16 . sidebranch fluid line 16 diverges from main fluid line 12 at bifurcation point 20 . main fluid line 12 includes a luer connection point 22 at its proximal end adapted to engage a source of inflation fluid . catheter 24 includes a manifold 25 having a main shaft 26 and a sidebranch shaft 28 . sidebranch shaft 28 converges with main shaft 26 at bifurcation point 30 . a luer connection point 32 is located at the distal end of main fluid line 12 of accessory device 11 , and is adapted to engage an opening 34 at the proximal end of main shaft 26 . luer connection point 36 is located at the distal end of sidebranch fluid line 16 , and is adapted to engage opening 38 at the proximal end of sidebranch shaft 28 . a first one - way stopcock 48 is disposed about mainbranch 12 proximal to luer connection point 32 . a second one - way stopcock 50 is disposed about sidebranch 16 proximal of luer connection point 36 . accessory device 11 may also include finger grip 52 disposed about bifurcation point 20 , which makes valve control accessory 11 easier to hold by reducing the chance of having it spin in use . a sidebranch balloon 40 is in fluid communication with sidebranch fluid line 16 of accessory device 11 through an inflation lumen disposed within tubular member 42 . a parent balloon 44 is in fluid communication with main fluid line 12 of accessory device 11 through an inflation lumen disposed within tubular member 46 . the fluid lines of valve control accessory 11 can be flexible or rigid , and may be formed from any suitable material well known to those of skill in the art . stopcocks 48 and 50 similarly may be formed from materials known to those of skill in the art . in use , the catheter system of fig1 allows the user to use one inflation device to inflate or deflate the balloons separately or simultaneously , without having to disconnect or reconnect the inflation device . catheter 24 may be advanced through the vasculature to the site of a lesion in a bifurcated vessel such that the bifurcated stent is properly positioned within the bifurcated vessel . once the catheter is in position , stopcock 50 may be turned to the “ open ” position and a source of inflation fluid attached to luer connecter 22 is used to introduce fluid into inflation lumen 42 , causing sidebranch balloon 40 to inflate , thereby expanding into its deployed position that portion of the stent that is in the sidebranch vessel . inflating the sidebranch balloon 40 first serves to properly align the opening in the stent with the sidebranch vessel . inflating the parent balloon without inflating the sidebranch balloon can be undesirable in that a portion of the stent could be deformed . sidebranch balloon 40 may then be deflated in order to temporarily restore blood flow through the sidebranch vessel . next , stopcock 48 and stopcock 50 are both turned to the “ open ” position , such that inflation fluid may also flow through main fluid line 12 and into inflation lumen 46 . both sidebranch balloon 40 and parent balloon 44 are thereby inflated simultaneously so as to fully deploy the stent . sidebranch balloon 40 and parent balloon 44 are then deflated simultaneously . catheter 24 is then withdrawn , leaving the stent in place within the bifurcated vessel . the presence of stopcocks on both the main fluid line 12 and the sidebranch fluid line 16 serves to isolate the parent balloon 44 from the sidebranch balloon 40 , thereby providing the flexibility to allow the user to inflate and deflate each balloon in a variety of ways . for example , the balloons could be inflated to different pressures . a significant feature of valve control accessory 11 is the branching off of sidebranch fluid line 16 from the main fluid line 12 in the shape of a “ y .” this provides an intuitive reminder to the user that the sidebranch fluid line 16 is in fluid communication with the sidebranch balloon 40 . such a configuration can reduce the chance of the user making an error with respect to which stopcock regulates inflation fluid flow to which balloon . fig2 illustrates a cross - sectional view of a preferred embodiment for a pressure indication device 54 which may be utilized in conjunction with all embodiments of the dual balloon valve control accessory of the present invention . device 54 may be disposed on fluid line 12 distal of stopcock 48 . pressure indicator device 54 includes a housing 56 and a cap 58 , which may be opaque . cap 58 serves to securely hold the internal components of pressure indicator device 54 within the housing 56 . an elastomeric component 60 is disposed within housing 56 and may be formed from any suitable elastomeric material . pressure indicator device 54 also includes an opening 62 into inflation lumen 14 at its base . a diaphragm 64 , which may be formed from any suitable elastomeric material , serves to prevent inflation fluid from lumen 14 from entering the inside of housing 56 via opening 62 . in use , the flow of inflation fluid through lumen 14 past pressure indicator device 54 subjects elastomeric diaphragm 64 to pressure , such that it flexes , causing the upward deformation of elastomeric component 60 . the upward deformation causes elastomeric component 60 to protrude above the cap 58 , as shown . the protrusion of elastomeric component 60 provides a visual indication to the user of the catheter that the catheter is under pressure . the protrusion also provides a tactile indicator of pressure in the form of an easily felt bump on the cap 58 . when the inflation fluid is no longer under pressure , elastomeric diaphragm 64 relaxes and returns to its unflexed position , causing elastomeric diaphragm 64 to assume a non - deformed position such that elastomeric component 60 no longer protrudes from cap 58 . generally , it is desired that both balloons be deflated before the catheter system is withdrawn from the vasculature . since the embodiment of fig1 allows each balloon to be inflated or deflated independently , the presence of pressure indicator 54 enhances the ability of the user to check whether both balloons are deflated before the catheter system is removed from the patient . pressure indicator 54 may also be formed as a separate piece to be connected in - line on any device where pressure indication is desired . fig3 illustrates an alternative embodiment of a valve control accessory for a dual balloon / dual inflation path stent delivery catheter . valve control accessory 111 is similar in most respects to valve control accessory 11 of fig1 with regard to formation and use , except that no stopcock is present on sidebranch fluid line 116 . stopcock 148 is disposed about main fluid line 112 . this embodiment allows the user to regulate the flow of inflation fluid through the main fluid line 112 , but not the sidebranch fluid line 116 . since , as described above , the sidebranch balloon is generally desired to be inflated first during use , this configuration ensures that the sidebranch balloon will always be inflated before the parent balloon , so long as stopcock 148 is closed . fig4 illustrates yet another embodiment of the present invention . valve control accessory 211 is similar to valve control accessory 11 of fig1 , except that a single three - way stopcock 66 at bifurcation point 220 replaces individual one - way stopcocks in the main fluid line 212 and sidebranch fluid line 216 . stopcock 66 can be formed from two mating core pins within a mold that would be pulled out in a parallel direction . fig5 - 8 illustrate cross - sectional views of the various positioning possibilities of three - way stopcock 66 . in fig5 , stopcock 66 is shown in the “ off ” position , in which inflation fluid is prevented from flowing through either main fluid line 212 or sidebranch fluid line 216 . in fig6 , stopcock 66 is shown in the “ on ” position , in which inflation fluid is allowed to flow through either main fluid line 212 or sidebranch fluid line 216 . fig7 illustrates stopcock 66 in the “ left on ” position , in which inflation fluid is allowed to flow only through main fluid line 212 . fig8 illustrates stopcock 66 in the “ right on ” position , in which inflation fluid is allowed to flow only through the sidebranch fluid line 216 . it will be understood that this disclosure , in many respects , is only illustrative . changes may be made in details , particularly in matters of shape , size , material , and arrangement of parts without exceeding the scope of the invention . for example , any of the embodiments above may be made as an integral part of an inflation device , making the connection between the line from the inflation device to the luer connector of the valve control accessory into a permanent , non - separable connection . additionally , an inflation device could be manufactured with two flexible parallel lines permanently attached to the distal end of the inflation device &# 39 ; s barrel . luer connection points would be placed on the distal ends of the lines for connecting to the balloons . stopcocks could be placed in just one line , between the barrel and a distal luer connection point , or in both lines . also , the bifurcated fluid lines of the valve control accessory device may assume a configuration different from the “ y ” shape illustrated in fig1 and fig3 . for example , the bifurcation may be symmetrically shaped . accordingly , the scope of the present invention is as defined in the language of the claims .	0
in describing preferred embodiments of the present disclosure illustrated in the drawings , specific terminology is employed for sake of clarity . however , the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the specific terminology so selected , and it is to be understood that each specific element includes all technical equivalents which operate in a similar manner . fig1 shows an example of a computer system which may implement the method and system of the present disclosure . the system and method of the present disclosure may be implemented in the form of a software application running on a computer system , for example , a mainframe , personal computer ( pc ), handheld computer , server , etc . the software application may be stored on a recording media locally accessible by the computer system , for example , floppy disk , compact disk , hard disk , etc ., or may be remote from the computer system and accessible via a hard wired or wireless connection to a network , for example , a local area network , or the internet . the computer system referred to generally as system 100 may include a central processing unit ( cpu ) 102 , for example , random access memory ( ram ) 104 , a printer interface 106 , a display unit 108 , a ( lan ) local area network data transmission controller 110 , a lan interface 112 , a network controller 114 , an internal bus 116 , and one or more input devices 118 , for example , a keyboard , mouse etc . as shown , the system 100 may be connected to a data storage device , for example , a hard disk , 120 , via a link 122 . a system for maintaining computer security according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is described with reference to fig2 . a proxy machine 22 provides an interface between a client web server 21 and the internet 24 . the domain name service ( dns ) entry for web server 21 points to proxy machine 22 . signature file 23 contains information about known vulnerabilities and exploits and makes this information available to proxy machine 22 . when used in conjunction with signature file 23 , proxy machine 22 works to protect client web server 21 from malicious http attacks . when a system , such as one of client computers 25 , attempts to access web server 21 via the internet 24 , the http access request message first goes through proxy machine 22 . proxy machine 22 then detenmines , based on the signatures in signature file 23 , whether the received message from client computer 25 is malicious . if proxy machine 22 determines that the message from client computer 25 is in fact malicious , proxy machine 22 blocks the message from ever going to web server 21 , thereby preventing it from ever exploiting web server 21 . on the other hand , if proxy machine 22 determines that the message from client computer 25 is not malicious , it will forward it to web server 21 . to illustrate this concept further , a client computer 25 on internet 24 may attempt a buffer overflow attack on web server 21 , which is an example of the type of attack which can be detected by the present disclosure . a buffer overflow attack occurs when a program attempts to write more data onto a buffer area in web server 21 than it can hold . this causes an overwriting of areas of stack memory in the web server 21 . if performed correctly , this allows malicious code to be placed on the web server 21 which would then be executed . for example , a http header contains the universal resource locator ( url ) of the resource to be retrieved from a web server . assume that a url of over 4 , 096 bytes long would cause a buffer overflow in web server 21 and that this is a known http attack and thus a signature for identifying this attack is present in signature file 23 . if client computer 25 tries to send a url to web server 21 that is over 4 , 096 bytes long , the signature in signature file 23 will tell proxy machine 22 that because the url in the http header is longer than the defined length , it should be blocked from reaching the web server 21 . signature file 23 and proxy machine 22 are thus able to ensure that web server 21 is protected from malicious attacks . fig3 illustrates the basic architecture of proxy machine 22 and fig7 is a flow chart for explaining the operation of proxy machine 22 according to embodiments of the present disclosure . as noted above , incoming messages from systems on the internet 24 first pass through proxy server 22 . according to an embodiment of the present disclosure , proxy server 22 is composed of an http message parser module 31 , an http message analyzer module 32 and an http message reassembly module 33 . the http message parser module 31 receives an incoming message ( step s 2 ), parses the incoming message ( step s 4 ) and converts it into an internal structure that http message analyzer module 32 recognizes ( step s 6 ). the data in the internal structure is then compared with the information in signature file 23 by http message analyzer module 32 ( step s 8 ). if http message analyzer module 32 finds a match in signature file 23 ( yes , step s 10 ), the message is blocked from ever reaching web server 21 ( step s 12 ). in addition , proxy machine 22 may also update a log with information specifying the time and type of attack detected in the malicious message . according to another embodiment , proxy machine 22 may make note of the machine that sent the malicious message and then automatically block any additional messages from that sending machine and / or prompt the user that this sending machine is again attempting access to the server . if there is no match in signature file 23 ( no , step s 10 ), the message is reassembled into its original http message format by http message reassembly module 33 ( step s 14 ) and is then sent to web server 21 ( step s 16 ). the relationship between proxy machine 22 and signature file 23 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is described with reference to fig4 . according to this embodiment of the present disclosure , signature file 23 is periodically updated to protect against the most up to date attacks . to do so , signature file 23 periodically accesses ftp server 41 via the internet 24 and downloads the latest versions of signature files 42 . according to another embodiment , as shown in fig5 , instead of proxy machine 22 getting information from signature file 23 , proxy machine 22 queries a remote database 51 for matching signatures . according to yet another embodiment , as shown in fig6 , a service center 61 automatically sends updated signature files to signature file 23 periodically or whenever a new attack is discovered . the present method and system thus provides an efficient and convenient way to protect a computer system from malicious attacks . numerous additional modifications and variations of the present disclosure are possible in view of the above - teachings . it is therefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claims , the present disclosure may be practiced other than as specifically described herein .	6
fig1 illustrates a generalized block diagram of one embodiment of a computer system 100 . computer system 100 , as shown , includes compute nodes 111 , 112 , and 113 coupled to i / o devices 131 , 132 , 133 , and 134 through a switch 120 . each compute node may be a cpu , one or more multi - core cpus , a cpu that operates in multiple operating system domains , and / or a single - board computer configured as a blade and mounted in a common chassis or drawer with other blades . a single connection is shown between each compute node and switch 120 , although in alternative embodiments , a compute node may include more than one point of connection , commonly referred to as a root port . multiple root ports on a single compute node may be referred to as a root complex . a root complex is typically a chip set that provides the interface between processing elements and memory and downstream i / o . each root port of a root complex may have its own switch connection . i / o devices 131 - 134 may be shared by compute nodes 111 - 113 through switch 120 . switch 120 may be virtualization hardware or hardware and software . for example , switch 120 may include a fabric of one or more pci express switches . switch 120 may also include storage hardware for implementing pci express bridge headers . fig2 illustrates one embodiment of a computer system 200 . computer system 200 , as shown , includes root ports 211 - 213 coupled to a set of i / o devices through a set of virtual switches 210 a - 210 c . in one embodiment , root ports 211 - 213 may correspond to compute nodes 111 - 113 of fig1 and virtual switches 210 a - 210 c may be implemented by switch 120 of fig1 . virtual switch 210 a may present a set of virtual i / o devices 231 - 233 to root port 211 through virtual bridges 220 - 223 . virtual i / o devices 231 - 233 correspond to one or more of physical devices 131 - 134 of fig1 . the correspondence between virtual i / o devices 231 - 233 and physical devices 131 - 134 is determined by the configuration of virtual switch 210 a according to a process that will be described further below . virtual switch 210 b may similarly present a set of virtual i / o devices 241 - 244 to root port 212 through virtual bridges 230 - 234 . virtual switch 210 c may similarly present a set of virtual i / o devices 261 - 263 to root port 213 through virtual bridges 250 - 253 . each of virtual switches 210 a , 210 b , and 210 c is shown to include a two - level virtual hierarchy of bridges . for example , virtual switch 210 a include bridge 220 for receiving downstream inputs from and conveying upstream outputs to root port 211 . bridge 220 is connected via a bus to bridges 221 - 223 , one for each downstream output / upstream input port . in one embodiment , bridges 220 - 223 may comply with the pci express specification . in alternative embodiments , virtual switches 210 may include a physical hierarchy of more than two levels . in particular , virtual switches 210 may take advantage of pci type 1 ( transparent ) mode bridges to provide access to virtual i / o devices through a physical hierarchy of two or more levels that is modeled as a two - level virtual hierarchy as shown . fig3 illustrates one embodiment of a set of tables 310 , 320 , and 330 used in the configuration of virtualization hardware . root port table 310 , as illustrated , includes entries 311 - 315 , etc ., each corresponding to one root port in a computer system . in one embodiment , each root port table entry includes a root port id , a root port complex id , and a compute node id for identifying the root port . each root port table entry may further include one or more capability fields that indicate characteristics of the root port such as software visibility , version number , etc . also , each root port table entry may include a virtual switch id and a virtual switch port number that indicate the virtual switch and port that are configured to exchange data with the root port . physical device table 330 , as illustrated , includes entries 331 - 350 , etc ., each corresponding to one physical i / o device in a computer system . in one embodiment , each physical device table entry may include a device id to distinguish one device from another in the table . in addition , each entry may include one or more capability fields that indicate characteristics of the i / o device such as maximum number of shared instances , version number , etc . also , each physical device table entry may include a virtual switch id and a virtual switch port number that indicate the virtual switch and port that are configured to exchange data with the physical device . virtual switch table 320 , as illustrated , includes entries 321 - 325 , etc ., each entry corresponding to one virtual switch such as virtual switches 210 a , 210 b , and 210 c as illustrated in fig2 . in one embodiment , each virtual switch table entry may include a virtual switch id to distinguish one virtual switch from another . in addition , each entry may include a field whose value indicates the maximum number of ports that may be configured in the virtual switch . also , a field may be included that identifies a root port that is associated with the virtual switch and one or more fields that identify physical devices that are associated with the virtual switch . in one embodiment , there may be a one - to - one correspondence between virtual switches and root ports , i . e ., virtualization hardware may create a separate virtual switch for each root port in the system . during configuration of virtualization hardware , a system administrator may examine the data found in root port table 310 and physical device table 330 to determine what virtual switches are desired . subsequently , the system administrator may configure the desired virtual switches by populating the fields of virtual switch table 320 . in one embodiment , virtualization hardware may be configured to populate root port table 310 and physical device table 330 with the results of a discovery process driven by software as may be used conventionally to find pci - interconnected devices . once the root ports and physical devices have been enumerated in their respective tables , a system administrator may create a virtual switch table entry for each root port . the system administrator may then fill in the desired fields of the virtual switch table entry to configure the corresponding virtual switch to be able to access the desired physical devices . in one embodiment , virtualization hardware may include software to fill in fields in root port table 310 and physical device table 330 with data corresponding to the data entered in virtual switch table entries by the system administrator . fig4 illustrates one embodiment of a set of virtual switch configuration tables . virtual switch table 410 includes an entry for each of virtual switches 420 a - 420 e . virtual switch bridge table 430 may include an entry for each virtual switch bridge that is configured in virtualization hardware . in one embodiment , entries in virtual switch table 410 may contain information similar to that included in entries in switch table 320 as described above . further , entries in virtual switch table 410 may point to a region of virtual switch bridge table 430 containing entries for each bridge that is configured in the corresponding virtual switch . for instance , the virtual switch table entry for switch 420 a may point to a region of virtual switch bridge table 430 that includes entries for virtual bridges 421 a - 425 a . in one embodiment , the entry in table 410 for switch 420 a may point to the entry in table 430 for virtual bridge 421 a . additional virtual bridges 422 a - 425 a may be located in table 430 at a known offset from the entry for virtual bridge 421 a , or by some other appropriate linking mechanism . virtual bridge 421 a may be the virtual bridge that is coupled to a root port while additional virtual bridges 422 a - 425 a may be coupled to physical devices . similarly , the virtual switch table entry for switch 420 b may point to a region of virtual switch bridge table 430 that includes entries for virtual bridges 421 b - 423 b , etc . it is noted that each virtual switch may be configured to have a different number of operating virtual bridges , depending on the desired connectivity of the corresponding root port , the number of available physical devices , the number of times each physical device may be shared , and the resources available in virtualization hardware . as shown in fig4 , table 430 may be sparsely populated , indicating that there are more resources available to support the configuration of additional virtual bridges than are currently allocated . fig5 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a mapping of virtual bridges to virtual bridge headers . in a computer system , virtualization hardware may include a number of virtual bridges 220 - 223 , 230 - 234 , and 250 - 253 , header storage 510 , and redirection logic 530 . header storage 510 may further include storage for a pool of virtual bridge headers 511 - 526 . in one embodiment , the size of the header pool may be fixed and determined by the implementation of the virtualization hardware . assignment of virtual bridge headers to a set of configured virtual bridges may correspond to the configuration indicated in a virtual switch bridge table such as table 430 of fig4 . in the illustrated embodiment , bridge 220 is mapped to header 512 , bridge 221 is mapped to header 518 , bridge 222 is mapped to header 511 , etc . the number of configured virtual bridges may be less than the number of headers available in header storage 510 , as shown . further , virtual bridges may be assigned to headers in any order desired . in one embodiment , header assignments may be dynamically reprogrammed whenever a new configuration of virtual switches is desired . the maximum number of configured virtual bridges may be equal to the number of headers available in header storage 510 . during operation , when a virtual switch receives a data packet for routing , error handling , etc . the port logic of the virtual switch may use an assigned virtual bridge header to process the packet . redirection logic 530 may be inserted between the port logic of the virtual switch and the bridge header storage 510 to redirect requests for information from the bridge header to the appropriate region of header storage 510 where the assigned header may be found . fig6 illustrates one embodiment of a process 600 that may be used to configure a computer system that includes virtualization hardware . process 600 begins with discovery of the physical topology of a computer system ( block 610 ). for example , in a computer system comprising compute nodes coupled to i / o devices through a fabric of pci express switches , conventional pci express discovery may be performed to capture the topology of the system . each compute node may include one or more root ports . once the topology has been discovered , an entry may be created in a virtual switch table for each root port in the topology ( block 620 ). a first virtual switch may then be selected ( block 630 ). for the selected virtual switch , data may be entered in the corresponding virtual switch table entry for the associated root port and each associated physical device ( block 640 ). next , a virtual switch bridge table entry may be created for each virtual bridge enabled in the selected virtual switch ( block 650 ). data in the virtual switch table entry may indicate the location of corresponding data in the virtual switch bridge table . for each virtual switch bridge table entry , a bridge header may be associated with the corresponding virtual bridge ( block 660 ). once data has been entered into the virtual switch table and the virtual switch bridge table for the selected virtual switch , if the selected switch is not the last virtual switch to be configured ( decision block 670 ), another virtual switch may be selected ( block 680 ) and the process continued at block 640 . if the selected switch is the last virtual switch to be configured ( decision block 670 ), process 600 is complete . fig7 illustrates one embodiment of a process 700 for transferring packets downstream from a root port to one of a number of shared physical devices through a virtual switch . process 700 begins with a virtual switch waiting to receive a request from a root port ( decision block 710 ). for example , a request may be a transmission of a data packet to be routed to a physical device . if a request is received , the switch identifies the downstream input switch port that is associated with the root port from which the request was received ( block 722 ). next , a table lookup may be performed to identify a bridge header associated with the downstream input switch port ( block 724 ). using the identified bridge header , the data packet may be processed ( block 726 ). if packet processing indicates that the packet does not meet one or more routing criteria ( decision block 730 ), the packet may be discarded ( block 740 ). otherwise , the switch identifies the downstream output switch port that is associated with a destination device identified in the data packet ( block 752 ). next , a table lookup may be performed to identify a bridge header associated with the downstream output switch port ( block 754 ). using the identified bridge header , the data packet may be processed ( block 756 ). if packet processing indicates that the packet does not meet one or more routing criteria ( decision block 760 ), the packet may be discarded ( block 740 ). otherwise , the packet may be sent to the destination device ( block 770 ) and process 700 is complete . fig8 illustrates one embodiment of a process 800 for transferring packets upstream from one of a number of shared physical devices to a root port through a virtual switch . process 800 begins with a virtual switch waiting to receive a request from an i / o device ( decision block 810 ). for example , a request may be a transmission of a data packet to be routed to a root port . if a request is received , the switch identifies the upstream input switch port that is associated with the physical i / o device from which the request was received ( block 822 ). next , a table lookup may be performed to identify a bridge header associated with the upstream input switch port ( block 824 ). using the identified bridge header , the data packet may be processed ( block 826 ). if packet processing indicates that the packet does not meet one or more routing criteria ( decision block 830 ), the packet may be discarded ( block 840 ). otherwise , the switch identifies the upstream output switch port that is associated with a root port identified in the data packet ( block 852 ). next , a table lookup may be performed to identify a bridge header associated with the upstream output switch port ( block 854 ). using the identified bridge header , the data packet may be processed ( block 856 ). if packet processing indicates that the packet does not meet one or more routing criteria ( decision block 860 ), the packet may be discarded ( block 840 ). otherwise , the packet may be sent to the destination root port ( block 870 ) and process 800 is complete . it is noted that the above - described embodiments may comprise software . in such an embodiment , the program instructions that implement the methods and / or mechanisms may be conveyed or stored on a computer accessible medium . numerous types of media which are configured to store program instructions are available and include hard disks , floppy disks , cd - rom , dvd , flash memory , programmable roms ( prom ), random access memory ( ram ), and various other forms of volatile or non - volatile storage . still other forms of media configured to convey program instructions for access by a computing device include terrestrial and non - terrestrial communication links such as network , wireless , and satellite links on which electrical , electromagnetic , optical , or digital signals may be conveyed . thus , various embodiments may further include receiving , sending or storing instructions and / or data implemented in accordance with the foregoing description upon a computer accessible medium . although the embodiments above have been described in considerable detail , numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated . it is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace all such variations and modifications .	6
the present invention relates to methods and systems for detection of targets , especially underwater targets , and particularly to such systems and methods using matched filter processing of a target return from a broad frequency band acoustic transmission , such as may result from the transmission of a broadband pulse train from an airgun source array . it is a feature of this invention to improve upon the system described in u . s . pat . no . 6 , 771 , 561 issued aug . 3 , 2004 to j . v . bouyoucos , et al in which a multiplicity of narrow frequency bands extracted from the broadband return are simultaneously matched filter processed to identify a moving target and the outputs from the band or bands which provide the best target response are used for target detection . the improvement is obtained by summing such selected band outputs and by using the summed outputs to enhance the probability of target detection . such enhanced detection may be afforded by visual displays which graphically identify the enhancement achieved by the summing process . it is a further feature of the invention to improve sonar detections as might be present in a multiplicity of analysis bands , such as may be provided by a bank of matched filter processors , by reducing the need for the sonar operator to focus on a large number of such bands ; the improvement resulting from band summing which provides both an enhanced and simplified detection process . such enhancement is especially useful when the receive array provides multiple beam outputs , each from a different azimuthal direction , thereby requiring the separate processing of a multiplicity of beam returns . as described in the above referenced bouyoucos , et al patent , a broadband train of closely - spaced , precisely timed impulsive events is transmitted underwater to detect a moving submarine target . for shallow water , reverberant environments the preferred frequency range may extend from 50 hz to 600 hz . the pulse train intercepts the moving submarine which reflects a time - compressed ( closing range ) or time - expanded ( opening range ) pulse train relative to the reflections from stationary reverberators . the reflected energy is received and stored in a memory bank . it is subsequently processed by matched filtering to suppress stationary reverberant returns and to identify moving targets . this procedure first divides the returning broadband energy into a series of contiguous , narrow ( e . g ., 50 hz ) frequency bands covering the bandwidth of the transmission . these 50 hz band returns are individually matched filter processed against stored replicas of the transmitted pulse train . these replicas are individually time compressed or time stretched to address the impact of the closing or receding target &# 39 ; s motion on the reflection of the incident pulse train . a match in the timing response of the received pulse train with the timing of a member of the replica bank results in an enhanced signal output identifying a moving target with a defined velocity . this procedure is repeated for all of the 50 hz frequency bands constituting the broadband transmitted signal , and for each beam from the sonar receive array . in accordance with the invention there is provided a matched filter processing routine in which multiple bands ( e . g ., 50 hz bands ) are simultaneously matched filtered to provide the sonar operator with a direct and immediate enhancement of detection probability on his sonar display through the direct summing of the matched filter outputs from selected ones of the 50 hz bands . it has been discovered according to the invention that each of the detections of a target exhibiting the same velocity in separate 50 hz frequency bands provides an “ independent look ” at the target . summing selected detection band outputs simultaneously can provide enhancement in detection probability in accordance with the principle of multiple looks . the application of multiple independent looks to the enhancement of probability of detection has been documented in radar detection by j . v . difranco and w . l . rubin , prentice hall , electrical engineering systems ( sections 11 . 2 and 11 . 3 of chapter 11 ). this enhancement is illustrated in fig1 a which plots the approximate improvement in probability of detection ( pd ) for multiple looks where the first “ look ” has a probability of detection of 50 % for the top curve , 30 % for the middle curve , and 20 % for the bottom curve . it can be seen that with three “ looks ” ( each at a 50 % pd ) the detection probability has increased to about 80 %. a further increase in the number of “ looks ” will further elevate pd , but at a much slower rate . if the initial pd is only 30 %, the three “ looks ” raises pd to above 60 %. with 6 “ looks ” the pd has increased to about 80 %. further if the initial pd is only 20 %, 6 “ looks ” raises the pd to nearly 70 %. the probability of detection ( pd ) vs signal to noise ratio for a single look is illustrated in fig1 b . note that a 14 db signal to noise ratio corresponds to a pd of about 50 %; an 11 db signal to noise ratio corresponds to a pd of about 30 %; and a 9 db signal to noise ratio corresponds to a pd of about 20 %. these signal to noise ratios relate to the starting points of the curves in fig1 a . fig1 a is simplified in that a similar probability of detection for each look is used along any one curve . nevertheless fig1 a shows that there is a strong enhancement of overall detection probability resulting from the combination , by summation , of a small number of detections in different frequency bands , each at relatively low detection probability . accordingly , the summing process of multiple looks according to the invention provides a robust method of converting a set of individually questionable detections into a composite detection exhibiting a higher order of detection probability . further the invention enables smaller airgun systems to be mounted on smaller craft while achieving the same detection probability at ranges as previously set forth for single band detection analysis . briefly described , the system and method according to the invention utilizes matched filter processing of a broadband return . such a return ( with or without target present ) may be for each beam of a multibeam ( multidirectional ) sonar receive array . the multi - beam matched filter outputs may be presented on one or more sonar displays . selected outputs which appear to exhibit a moving target response above a noise threshold may be combined , as by summing , to provide a display of enhanced probability that a moving target has been detected . the selection of the outputs may be automated and the display may present target range , velocity and bearing . the foregoing and other features and advantages of the invention may become more apparent from a reading of the following description in connection with the accompanying drawings in which fig1 a is a plot showing probability of detection vs number of looks ( bands ) as a function of the initial look pd ( probability of detection ). initial look pds are identified as 20 %, 30 % and 50 %; fig1 b is a plot of signal to noise ratio vs probability of detection which relates the initial looks to a received signal level . fig2 is a block diagram of the receive portion of a sonar system including a processor in accordance with the invention ; fig3 and 5 are plots of match filter outputs and sums thereof for different selected bands which may be provided in the system of fig2 ; fig6 and 7 are different exemplary displays obtained with the system of fig2 ; fig8 is a plot of the broadband spectrum of a multiple pulse train produced by an array of airguns ; and fig9 a and b are plots of target detection ranges for targets in fast bottom and slow bottom channels , respectively as may be obtained using the system of fig2 . for purposes of illustration of the invention , fig2 illustrates essentially a presently preferred means for combining the outputs from a bank 20 of matched filters , each filter a - i associated with a different 50 hz frequency sub - band obtained from 50 hz band pass filters 30 . the matched filters include replica banks as discussed above . at the output of each filter are one and two summing networks 50 and 60 whose outputs , in turn , are fed , for illustrative purposes to two displays 1 ( 70 ) and 2 ( 80 ). the broadband returns from a multiple pulse airgun array transmission are received by a receive array 90 , on one or more beams established by a beamformer 100 connected to the hydrophones of the array 90 . for example , display 1 may present the sum of matched filters a , b , and c , while display 2 shows the sum of matched filters d , e and f . this display also has the option of examining any one or other combination of these six frequency bands from center frequencies of 100 hz to 350 hz by the use of the selection switches 1 through 8 . the switches may also be used to turn off selected bands that may be contaminated by extraneous noise sources . display 2 has access to six matched filters , three of which ( d , e and f ) also feed display 1 . display 2 has unique access to matched filters g , h and i as does display 1 to matched filters a , b and c . such combining relationships as shown are arbitrary and employed here only for the purposes of illustration . by the use of the switches 1 through 12 in the example of fig2 a variety of display options are available to the operator providing for the presentations of single band outputs and summed combinations up to 6 outputs . generally , for the longer range detections in shallow water the six bands with center frequencies ranging from 100 hz to 350 hz will likely be preferred . for closer in targets the 400 , 450 and 500 hz bands may be desired . further , as will be noted bottom conditions can influence dramatically the frequency regimes best selected for target detection . examples of the matched filter responses for a 21 shot tapered sequence of impulses at ½ second repetition rate are shown in fig3 and 5 . these responses illustrate the level of reverberation suppression that can be obtained versus target doppler . the frequencies noted are the center frequencies of the respective 50 hz analysis bands . with three bands in each of fig3 and 5 , the total frequency range illustrated extends from center frequencies of 100 hz to 550 hz . note that in fig5 the doppler scale has been changed from 1 to 14 knots ( as in fig3 and 4 ) to 1 to 7 knots , providing , for the higher frequencies involved , improved detection of low velocity targets down to the range of 1 knot . as an example , fig3 shows the matched filter outputs for three , 50 hz wide frequency bands with center frequencies of 100 , 150 , and 200 hz . overlaid on these curves is a candidate target response at 8 knots . if the − 35 db or so floor of the matched filter response corresponds to the noise floor as well , the 14 db or so excess of the target response over this noise floor , as illustrated , should correspond to a probability of detection of about 50 % when processed in one 50 hz band at a time . fig4 and 5 illustrate similar 3 band examples . as the frequencies increase the ambiguity lobes near 0 knots tend to sharpen enabling easier detection of slow moving targets . this can be seen from the 2 knot target response in fig5 for the 400 , 450 and 500 hz bands . the slow target is clearly differentiated from the 0 velocity ambiguity whereas it would be obscured in the low frequency bands of fig3 . fig6 sets forth a candidate operator display in which band groupings can be compared with single band responses to give an immediate assessment of the robustness of the detection . for example in this presentation the left - hand trace is for a single 50 hz band response in a given beam . its indicated amplitude suggests ( for purposes of illustration ) a probability of detection of 50 %. the right - hand trace in the figure is for the sum of three bands , each band exhibiting the target at a 50 % pd . note that the ordinate scale in this figure is elevated by 10 db to reflect the summing of the three bands . the shape of the curves is identical except for the displacement in floor levels . the fact that the level of the target response in the right - hand trace has increased by about 10 db over that of the left - hand trace is a direct indication that the target is exhibiting roughly the same pd in each of the three bands . according to fig1 the pd has increased to 80 %. fig7 illustrates , respectively , a case where the moving target appears to be present in 1 band only . the summation of 3 bands indicates a degraded response indicative of a false alarm . as the bands are summed , a robust target detection will retain its integrity and the detection probability will , have increased . conversely , if the response happens to be an artifact , and is not replicated in adjacent bands , the net response on summing will have diminished . fig8 sets forth a plot of the signal excess in db for the airgun source spectral output relative to ambient noise . the airgun may be an array as shown in j . v . bouyoucos u . s . pat . no . 5 , 995 , 452 issued nov . 30 , 1999 . the airgun signal excess over noise peaks between 200 hz and 300 hz and exhibits a ± 2 db bandwidth extending from about 50 hz to 500 hz . propagation characteristics can control frequency choice as is noted above . fig9 sets forth the detection range estimates ( at a 50 % pd ) for a 28 airgun array and for a 125m ( meter ) channel . the receive array may be a towed array . two cases are illustrated , the case in fig9 a is for a sandy , hard bottom while the case for fig9 b is for a bottom having a 4m sediment layer overlay as found in many areas near the mouth of a major river . the mean target strength for this example is 5 db . the q &# 39 ; s on the plots identify detection ranges ( at 50 % pd ) for a quartering aspect target as a function of frequency in 50 hz increments over the range from 50 hz to 1000 hz . the a &# 39 ; s represent axial aspect detections over the same frequency range . for the hard , sandy bottom propagation best supports the frequency region between , say , 150 hz and 400 hz . for the sediment layered bottom frequencies below 150 hz are seen to be preferred . it can be recognized that the airgun system &# 39 ; s range of center frequencies , extending from 50 hz to 500 hz , effectively encompasses the regimes of maximum detection potential for these cases . the act of selective band summing , as described above , can solidify detections by enhancing their probability without a significant loss of detection range . in this regard , it is important to note that for a single 50 hz band alone , with its q point representing a 50 % pd , one would have to step back in two - way propagation loss by about 6 db from the maximum shown to achieve an 80 % pd , or to about 65 % in range . this same improvement in pd to 80 % is obtained in a 3 band summing operation with a minimal modification in range , depending on the curvature of the propagation loss versus frequency . in summary the invention provides an improved band combining processing system and method and , as has been illustrated , provides for an efficient and displayable increase in detection probability of a moving target in a reverberant environment . the method , involving the summing of selected analysis bands according to the invention , provides an enhanced probability of moving target detection . as the operator has multiple receiver beams to keep track of , the use of simplified and enhanced means for ascertaining a moving target at extended ranges on any given beam is a desirable option . the procedures outlined above are compatible with providing the operator an automated alert of moving target presence on any given beam . this automation process may be realized through a threshold sensor associated with each of the frequency bands ( or sets of bands ) in the analysis hierarchy . such sensor may ring an alarm or trigger the automated presentation of the particular beam display to an operator ( or both ). the improvements outlined reduce the need for the operator to focus on a large multiplicity of 50 hz analyses bands , and provides through the band summing approach , an enhanced and simplified detection procedure for a given beam . further the ability to use a target velocity detection provides an inherent classification of moving over non - moving targets , and can reduce the prevalence of false alarms . the multiple pulse transmissions can be augmented by spaced , single shots ( or shot triplets ) to help detect a stationary target through other classification tools such as spectral analysis , without adversely affecting the operation of the system provided by the invention . as described above , the probability of detection of an underwater moving target , insonified by a broadband , multiple pulse transmission sequence , may be enhanced by a critical two - step process . first , matched - filter processes , using replicas of the transmitted pulse train , are applied concurrently to a multiplicity of narrow ( e . g ., 50 hz wide ) frequency bands of the broadband echo response obtained from the receiver array . such matched filter processing can suppress reverberation and provide a moving target response at the target &# 39 ; s velocity . second , selected ones of said processed , moving - target return data sets are summed to create a composite moving target return in ambiguity space . the amplitude of this composite return with respect to the amplitude of the ambiguity background can help to quantify and enhance the probability that the system has detected a coherently responding , moving target . in particular , a robust response in which the moving target amplitude is enhanced by an amount comparable to the enhancement of the ambiguous side lobes is quantitative evidence of an increase in target detection probability . on the other hand , a reduced response by which the target amplitude weakens relative to the ambiguous side lobe responses following the summing process can reduce operator confidence in detection likelihood . variations and modification of the herein described system within the scope of the invention may become apparent to those skilled in the art . accordingly , the foregoing description should be taken as illustrative and not in a limiting sense .	6
the exemplary embodiments will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings . the exemplary embodiments may , however , be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein . these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete and will fully convey the exemplary embodiments to those of ordinary skill in the art . moreover , all statements herein reciting embodiments , as well as specific examples thereof , are intended to encompass both structural and functional equivalents thereof . additionally , it is intended that such equivalents include both currently known equivalents as well as equivalents developed in the future ( i . e ., any elements developed that perform the same function , regardless of structure ). thus , for example , it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the diagrams , schematics , illustrations , and the like represent conceptual views or processes illustrating the exemplary embodiments . the functions of the various elements shown in the figures may be provided through the use of dedicated hardware as well as hardware capable of executing associated software . those of ordinary skill in the art further understand that the exemplary hardware , software , processes , methods , and / or operating systems described herein are for illustrative purposes and , thus , are not intended to be limited to any particular named manufacturer . as used herein , the singular forms “ a ,” “ an ,” and “ the ” are intended to include the plural forms as well , unless expressly stated otherwise . it will be further understood that the terms “ includes ,” “ comprises ,” “ including ,” and / or “ comprising ,” when used in this specification , specify the presence of stated features , integers , steps , operations , elements , and / or components , but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features , integers , steps , operations , elements , components , and / or groups thereof . it will be understood that when an element is referred to as being “ connected ” or “ coupled ” to another element , it can be directly connected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may be present . furthermore , “ connected ” or “ coupled ” as used herein may include wirelessly connected or coupled . as used herein , the term “ and / or ” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items . it will also be understood that , although the terms first , second , etc . may be used herein to describe various elements , these elements should not be limited by these terms . these terms are only used to distinguish one element from another . for example , a first device could be termed a second device , and , similarly , a second device could be termed a first device without departing from the teachings of the disclosure . fig1 is a schematic illustrating an environment in which exemplary embodiments may be implemented . a user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 receives a video signal 22 from a communications network 24 . the video signal 22 may be a movie , sporting event , or any other content . the video signal 22 may originate , or be received from , any source , such as a video server 26 . the video signal 22 may have any formatting , and the video signal 22 may be unicast , multicast , or broadcast to the electronic device 20 . the video signal 22 may also originate from a local source , such as a dvd player , a digital or analog recorder , local memory , or other local source that may be accessible without the communications network 24 . although the electronic device 20 is generically shown , the electronic device 20 , as will be later explained , may be a computer , a radio , a set - top receiver , a personal digital assistant ( pda ), a cordless / cellular / ip phone , digital music player , or any other processor - controlled device . the video signal 22 may include an alternate audio tag 28 . according to exemplary embodiments , the alternate audio tag 28 may be any information that identifies alternate audio sources for the video signal 22 . the video signal 22 may include , or be received with , audio content or portions ( such as an audio track to a movie ). the user , however , may wish to experience an alternate audio source that is not sent with the video signal 22 . the alternate audio source , for example , may be a different language track , sanitized dialog , an am or fm radio broadcast , and / or alternate commentary . these alternate audio sources , in general , may be any audio signal that is separately received from the video signal 22 . as fig1 illustrates , the video signal 22 , and / or alternate audio tag 28 , may include a video content identifier 30 . the video content identifier 30 may be any identification number , title , code , or other data that uniquely describes the content associated with the video signal 22 . the alternate audio tag 28 may be embedded within the video signal 22 ( or otherwise associated with the video signal 22 ) to alert or notify users of these alternate audio sources . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 receives the video signal 22 . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 also receives the alternate audio tag 28 and / or the video content identifier 30 . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 comprises a processor 32 ( e . g ., “ μp ”), application specific integrated circuit ( asic ), or other similar device that may execute an alternate audio application 34 stored in memory 36 . according to exemplary embodiments , the alternate audio application 34 comprises processor - executable instructions that may inspect the video signal 22 for the alternate audio tag 28 or otherwise identify the associated alternate audio tag 28 . the presence of the alternate audio tag 28 notifies the alternate audio application 34 that alternate audio sources may exist for the video signal 22 . when the alternate audio tag 28 is detected , the alternate audio application 34 may alert the user that alternate audio sources may exist for the video signal 22 . the alternate audio application 34 , for example , may cause the visual and / or audible presentation of a prompt 38 on a display device 40 . the prompt 38 notifies the user that alternate audio sources may exist . when the user wishes to retrieve an alternate audio source , the user may affirmatively select a control 42 , thus authorizing the alternate audio application 34 to query for the alternate audio sources . fig2 is a schematic illustrating a process for retrieving alternate audio sources , according to more exemplary embodiments . when the user wishes to retrieve an alternate audio source , the user affirmatively responds to the prompt ( shown as reference numeral 38 in fig1 ). the alternate audio application 34 may call or invoke a search application 50 to issue or send a query for any alternate audio sources associated with the video content identifier ( step 52 ). the query may communicate ( via the communications network 24 illustrated in fig1 ) to a database server 54 ( such as a yahoo ® or google ® server ). the query may additionally or alternatively communicate to other devices in the vicinity of the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 . the query , for example , may be sent via an infrared , bluetooth ®, wi - fi ®, or other coupling to other devices within the user &# 39 ; s social network . a response is then received ( step 56 ). the response includes a query result that may include or describe a listing 58 of one or more alternate audio sources that may correspond to the video signal 22 . the listing 58 , for example , may describe one or more websites or network addresses that provide an alternate , simulcast or archived audio signal to accompany the video signal 22 . the listing 58 may describe one or more radio stations that broadcast an alternate audio signal ( such as alternate announcers for a sporting event ). the listing 58 may include real - time or archived podcasts from a member of an audience . the listing 58 may also include alternate audio sources obtainable from members of the user &# 39 ; s social network . the listing 58 is presented to the user ( step 60 ). the search application 50 and / or the alternate audio application 34 may cause the listing 58 to be displayed on the display device ( illustrated as reference numeral 40 in fig1 ). the user may then select an alternate audio source from the listing 58 , and that selection is received ( step 62 ). according to exemplary embodiments , the alternate audio application 34 causes an audio query to be sent for the selected alternate audio source ( step 64 ). the audio query communicates ( via the communications network 24 illustrated in fig1 ) to a communications address associated with a source of the selected alternate audio source . the audio query , for example , may communicate to an audio server . an audio signal is then received at the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 ( step 66 ). if the alternate audio source is a terrestrial am or fm radio station signal , then the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 may be tuned to the corresponding frequency ( as later paragraphs will explain ). the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 then processes signals . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 thus receives the video signal ( illustrated as reference numeral 22 in fig1 ) and also receives the separate , audio signal . the video signal and the audio signal may thus be separately received as separate streams of data . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 then processes the video signal and the audio signal for visual and audible presentation ( step 68 ). exemplary embodiments may be applied regardless of networking environment . the communications network 24 may be a cable network operating in the radio - frequency domain and / or the internet protocol ( ip ) domain . the communications network 24 , however , may also include a distributed computing network , such as the internet ( sometimes alternatively known as the “ world wide web ”), an intranet , a local - area network ( lan ), and / or a wide - area network ( wan ). the communications network 24 may include coaxial cables , copper wires , fiber optic lines , and / or hybrid - coaxial lines . the communications network 24 may even include wireless portions utilizing any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum , any modulation technique , and / or any signaling standard ( such as the i . e . e . e . 802 family of standards , gsm / cdma / tdma or any cellular standard , and / or the ism band ). the concepts described herein may be applied to any wireless / wireline communications network , regardless of physical componentry , physical configuration , or communications standard ( s ). fig3 is a schematic further illustrating a process for retrieving alternate audio , according to more exemplary embodiments . here , when the video signal ( illustrated as reference numeral 22 in fig1 ) is received ( step 80 ), the video signal may also identify the alternate audio sources . that is , when the alternate audio tag 28 is received , the listing 58 of one or more alternate audio sources may also be embedded or encoded within the video signal and / or the alternate audio tag 28 . alternatively , the listing 58 may be separately retrieved via a database query using the video content identifier 30 . a content provider of the video signal , for example , may configure the video signal to self - identify the alternate audio sources . the video signal may include information that identifies a website or server address that provides an alternate language track or a different dialog . the content provider may identify radio stations providing different announcers for a football game , political convention , or background music . again , whatever the alternate audio sources , the listing 58 may be embedded or encoded within the video signal and / or the alternate audio tag 28 . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 receives the alternate audio tag 28 . the presence of the alternate audio tag 28 again notifies the alternate audio application 34 that alternate audio sources may exist for the video signal . the alternate audio application 34 may visually and / or audibly present the listing 58 already received from the video signal ( step 82 ). the user may select an alternate audio source from the listing 58 , and the alternate audio application 34 receives that selection ( step 84 ). the alternate audio application 34 sends the audio query to the source of the selected alternate audio source ( e . g ., an audio server 86 ) ( step 88 ). the audio server 86 sends the separate audio signal ( step 90 ). the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 thus receives the video signal and also receives the separate , audio signal . the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 then processes the video signal and the audio signal for visual and audible presentation ( step 92 ). fig4 is a schematic illustrating additional queries for alternate audio sources , according to more exemplary embodiments . because fig4 is similar to fig2 and 3 , fig4 is only briefly described . when the video signal is received ( step 100 ), the video signal may also include the alternate audio tag and the listing of alternate audio sources . the listing of alternate audio sources is presented to the user ( step 102 ). here , even though the content provider may embed or provide the listing of alternate audio sources , the user may still wish to query for other alternate audio sources . the alternate audio sources identified in the listing , for example , may not appeal to the user . the user may , instead , wish to conduct a search for additional alternate audio sources not identified in the listing . the alternate audio application 34 , then , may prompt to search for alternate audio sources , despite the listing ( step 104 ). when the user affirmatively responds to the prompt , the alternate audio application 34 is authorized to query for additional alternate audio sources . the alternate audio application 34 calls or invokes the search application 50 and sends the query for any alternate audio sources associated with the video content identifier ( step 106 ). a response to the query is received ( step 108 ), and the query result describes more alternate audio sources that may correspond to the same video content identifier . the alternate audio sources are then presented ( step 110 ). the user may select any alternate audio source from the listing or from the query result . the user &# 39 ; s selection is received ( step 112 ) and the audio query is sent to the source ( e . g ., the audio server 86 ) ( step 114 ). the separate audio signal is received ( step 116 ) and processed along with the video signal ( step 118 ). fig5 is a schematic illustrating a user interface for retrieving alternate audio sources , according to more exemplary embodiments . according to exemplary embodiments , the alternate audio application 34 causes the processor 32 to graphically present a user interface 130 on the display device 40 . when the video signal 22 includes the listing 58 , the user interface 130 may present the listing 58 to the user . the user is thus informed of alternate audio sources embedded or encoded within the video signal 22 . the user , however , may wish to search for additional alternate audio sources not identified in the listing 58 . the user interface 130 , then , may include the control 42 to search for additional audio sources . when the user selects the control 42 , the alternate audio application 34 may invoke the search application ( illustrated as reference numeral 50 in fig2 - 4 ) and query for alternate audio sources associated with the video content identifier 30 . when the search results are received , the user interface 130 may visually present those additional audio sources 134 . the user may then select a desired alternate audio source from the alternate audio sources provided by the listing 58 and / or from the additional alternate audio sources found by invoking the search application 50 . the desired alternate audio source is retrieved and processed . fig6 is a schematic illustrating synchronization of signals , according to more exemplary embodiments . now that the user has selected an alternate audio source , the user &# 39 ; s electronic device 20 may receive the video signal 22 and the separate audio signal 140 . the video signal 22 may communicate from the video server 26 via the communications network 24 . according to exemplary embodiments , the separate audio signal 140 communicates from a separate source , such as the audio server 86 . the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 may be unicast , multicast , or broadcast to the electronic device 20 . the video signal 22 and the audio signal 140 may thus be separately received as separate streams of data . the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 may need synchronization . when the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 correspond to the same content , propagation delays in the communications network 24 may cause the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 to lead or lag . the video signal 22 , for example , may contain more bits or information than the audio signal 140 , so the video signal 22 may propagate more slowly through the communications network 24 . whatever the causes , though , the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 may be unsynchronized . when the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 correspond to the same content , then the audio portion of the content may be out - of - synchronization with the video portion . the electronic device 20 , then , may synchronize the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 to help ensure the content is enjoyed as intended . a synchronizer 142 may be invoked . the synchronizer 142 may be a component of the electronic device 20 that causes synchronization of the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 . as later paragraphs will explain , the synchronizer 142 may be circuitry , programming , or both . the synchronizer 142 , for example , may compare time stamps and / or markers . as fig6 illustrates , the video signal 22 may include one or more video time stamps 144 . the video time stamps 144 mark or measure an amount of time from a reference point or time . the video time stamps 144 , for example , may signify an offset time from the start of a file , program , or the video signal 22 . some or all frames in the video signal 22 may have corresponding time stamps that measure when a frame occurs with reference to the start of the file , program , or the video signal 22 . the electronic device 20 may also receive audio time stamps 146 . when the audio signal 140 is received , the audio time stamps 146 may be encoded within the audio signal 140 . the audio time stamps 146 mark or measure an amount of time from a reference point or time . the audio time stamps 146 may signify an offset time from the start of a file , program , or the audio signal 140 . the audio time stamps 146 mark or measure when portions of the audio signal 140 occur with reference to the start of the file , program , or the audio signal 140 . the synchronizer 142 may compare the audio time stamps 146 to the video time stamps 144 . when a currently - received audio time stamp 148 exceeds a currently - received video time stamp 150 , then the synchronizer 142 may delay the audio signal 140 . the synchronizer 142 may subtract the currently - received video time stamp 150 from the currently - received audio time stamp 148 . that difference is compared to a threshold time 152 . the threshold time 152 is any configurable time at which timing lag ( or lead ) in the video signal 22 is unacceptable . when the difference between the currently - received audio time stamp 148 and the currently - received video time stamp 150 equals and / or exceeds the threshold time 152 , then the synchronizer 142 may delay the audio signal 140 . the synchronizer 142 may even compare the absolute value of the difference to the threshold time 152 . the synchronizer 142 continues to compare the successively - received audio time stamps 146 to the successively - received video time stamps 144 until the difference is within the threshold time 152 . the synchronizer 142 then releases a delayed audio signal 154 for subsequent processing . the delayed audio signal 154 , for example , may be processed by processing circuitry 156 for audible presentation . the video signal 22 may also be processed by the processing circuitry 156 for visual presentation . because the audio signal 140 has been delayed , though , exemplary embodiments synchronize the delayed audio signal 154 and the video signal 22 to help ensure the content is enjoyed . the synchronizer 142 may additionally or alternatively utilize markers . the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 may include or be associated with markers . these markers may or may not be based on time stamps . these markers represent and / or identify an event within the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 . a marker , for example , may identify a scene , a transition , a beginning of a new segment , and / or some other occurrence in the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 . for example , a marker may identify a kick - off of a football game , a transition from one scene to another in a movie , or some other occurrence . the synchronizer 142 may compare the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 for similar markers . when a lead condition is detected , the leading signal may be delayed for synchronization . some aspects of synchronization are known , so this disclosure will not greatly explain the known details . if the reader desires more details , the reader is invited to consult the following sources , all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety : u . s . pat . no . 4 , 313 , 135 to cooper ; u . s . pat . no . 4 , 839 , 733 to karamon , et al . ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 055 , 939 to karamon , et al . ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 202 , 761 to cooper ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 387 , 943 to silver ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 440 , 351 to ichino ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 577 , 042 to mcgraw , sr ., et al . ; u . s . pat . no . 5 , 917 , 557 to toyoda ; u . s . pat . no . 6 , 263 , 505 to walker , et al . ; u . s . pat . no . 6 , 502 , 142 to rapaich ; u . s . pat . no . 6 , 630 , 963 to billmaier ; u . s . pat . no . 6 , 710 , 815 to billmaier ; u . s . patent application publication 2002 / 0101442 to costanzo , et al . ; u . s . patent application publication 2003 / 0086015 to korhonen , et al . ; u . s . patent application publication 2004 / 0117825 to watkins ; and u . s . patent application publication 2005 / 0027715 to casey , et al . fig7 is a schematic illustrating a delay of the video signal 22 , according to more exemplary embodiments . here , for whatever reason , the video signal 22 may lead the audio signal 140 . that is , when the audio signal 140 lags the video signal 22 , exemplary embodiments may delay the video signal 22 . the synchronizer 142 may again compare the audio time stamps 146 to the video time stamps 144 . when the currently - received video time stamp 150 exceeds the currently - received audio time stamp 148 , then the synchronizer 142 may delay the video signal 22 . the synchronizer 142 may subtract the currently - received audio time stamp 148 from the currently - received video time stamp 150 and compare that difference to the threshold time 152 . when the difference equals and / or exceeds the threshold time 152 , then the synchronizer 142 may delay the video signal 22 . the synchronizer 142 continues to compare the successively - received video time stamps 144 to the successively - received audio time stamps 146 until the difference is within the threshold time 152 . the synchronizer 142 then releases a delayed video signal 160 for subsequent processing . the processing circuitry 156 processes the audio signal 140 and / or the delayed video signal 160 for audible / visual presentation . the audio signal 140 and the delayed video signal 160 are thus synchronized to help ensure the content is enjoyed . fig8 is a schematic further illustrating the electronic device 20 , according to more exemplary embodiments . here the synchronizer 142 comprises the processor 32 , and the processor 32 executes a synchronization application 170 . the synchronization application 170 is illustrated as a module or sub - component of the alternate audio application 34 . the synchronization application 170 , however , may be a separate application that stores in the memory 36 and cooperates with the alternate audio application 34 . the synchronization application 170 may even be remotely stored and accessed at some location within the communications network ( illustrated as reference numeral 24 in fig1 ). regardless , the synchronization application 170 comprises processor - executable instructions that determine when synchronization is needed between the received audio signal 140 and the received video signal 22 , according to exemplary embodiments . when synchronization is needed , the synchronization application 170 synchronizes the video signal 22 and the separately - received audio signal 140 . the synchronization application 170 may first determine when synchronization is desired . when the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 correspond to the same content , synchronization may be desired . if , however , the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 are unrelated , then perhaps synchronization is unnecessary . the synchronization application 170 , then , may inspect for content identifiers . as fig8 illustrates , when the audio signal 140 is received , the audio signal 140 may include an audio content identifier 172 . the audio content identifier 172 may be any information that describes the audio signal 140 . the audio content identifier 172 , for example , may be any identification number , title , code , or other alphanumeric string that uniquely describes the audio signal 140 . likewise , when the video signal 22 is received , the synchronization application 170 may inspect the video signal 22 for the video content identifier 30 . the video content identifier 30 may be any identification number , title , code , information , or alphanumeric string that uniquely describes the video signal 22 . the synchronization application 170 may then compare the audio content identifier 172 to the video content identifier 30 . if the audio content identifier 172 matches the video content identifier 30 , then the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 likely correspond to the same content . if even some portion of the audio content identifier 172 matches the video content identifier 30 ( or vice versa ), then the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 may still correspond to the same content . the synchronization application 170 may thus confirm that the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 should be synchronized . if the synchronization application 170 observes no similarity , or an insubstantial amount of similarity , in the audio content identifier 172 and the video content identifier 30 , then synchronization application 170 may decline to synchronize . regardless , a user may configure the synchronization application 170 to start , or to stop , synchronization as needed , despite dissimilar content identifiers . once synchronization is determined to be needed and / or desired , the synchronization application 170 may ensure the content remains pleasing and enjoyable . the synchronization application 170 reads , extracts , or otherwise obtains the audio time stamps 146 and the video time stamps 144 and makes a comparison . whenever a lead or a lag condition is detected , the synchronization application 170 may instruct the processor 32 to divert the leading signal to a buffer memory 174 . the buffer memory 174 may store the leading signal in a first in , first out ( fifo ) fashion . as the leading signal accumulates in the buffer memory 174 , the leading signal is delayed in comparison to a lagging signal 176 . a delayed signal 178 may then be retrieved from the buffer memory 174 and processed by the processing circuitry 156 . so , regardless of whether the video signal 22 or the audio signal 140 leads , the buffer memory 174 may cause a delay , thus synchronizing the audio and video portions . fig8 also illustrates user - configuration of the threshold time 152 , according to more exemplary embodiments . because the threshold time 152 is configurable , the threshold time 152 may be specified by a user of the electronic device 20 , according to exemplary embodiments . the user interface 130 , for example , may permit changing or entering the threshold time 152 . the user interface 130 allows the user to alter the threshold time 152 and , thus , manually set or establish any delay caused by the synchronizer 142 . the user interface 130 , for example , may have a data field 180 into which the user enters the threshold time 152 . the threshold time 152 may be expressed in any measurement and / or in any increment of time , from zero delay to seconds , minutes , or even hours of delay . the user interface 130 may additionally or alternatively include a first timing control 182 for increasing the threshold time 152 . a second timing control 184 may be used to decrease the threshold time 152 . the user interface 130 may additionally or alternatively include a graphical or physical rotary knob , slider , button , or any other means of changing the threshold time 152 . the threshold time 152 may be specified by a content provider . a provider of the video signal 22 , for example , may include threshold information 186 within the video signal 22 . the threshold information 186 is then used to define , derive , or specify the threshold time 152 . the threshold information 186 , for example , may be embedded or encoded within the video signal 22 . when the video signal 22 is received , exemplary embodiments may then obtain , read , and / or extract the threshold information 186 . the provider of the video signal 22 may thus specify the threshold time 152 and determine how much asynchronism is tolerable between the video signal 22 and the corresponding ( but separately received ) audio signal 140 . a content provider , for example , may encode 500 millisecond as the threshold information 186 within the video signal 22 . when a lead or lag condition exceeds 500 milliseconds , then the synchronization application 170 instructs the processor 32 to delay the audio signal 140 , the video signal 22 , or both . similarly , the threshold information 186 may be embedded or encoded within , or modulated onto , the audio signal 140 , and the synchronization application 170 causes a delay when needed . if the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 both include the threshold information 186 , then the synchronization application 170 may have authority to choose one or the other . when the audio signal 140 specifies a first threshold information , while the video signal 22 specifies another , second threshold information , then the synchronization application 170 may choose the smaller value to minimize asynchronous conditions . fig9 is a schematic illustrating another operating environment in which exemplary embodiments may be implemented . the electronic device 20 again receives the video signal 22 and the separate audio signal 140 . here , however , the video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 are terrestrially broadcast at some frequency of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum . the audio signal 140 , for example , may be wirelessly broadcast from an antenna coupled to the communications network 24 . the audio signal 140 may be wirelessly transmitted using any signaling standard ( such as the i . e . e . e . 802 family of standards , gsm / cdma / tdma or any cellular standard , wi - fi ®, and / or the ism band ). the video signal 22 , too , may be received via wireless or wired communication . regardless , the video signal 22 and the audio signal 140 may be separately received as separate streams of data . according to exemplary embodiments , the electronic device 20 includes at least one wireless receiver . a wireless video receiver 200 , for example , couples to an antenna 202 and wirelessly receives the video signal 22 at some frequency of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum . a wireless audio receiver 204 may couple to another antenna 206 and wirelessly receives the audio signal 140 at some frequency of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum . if the audio signal 140 and / or the video signal 22 is / are modulated , the electronic device 20 may include one or more demodulators 208 . if analog or digital conversion is needed , the electronic device 20 may include an a / d or d / a converter 210 . if synchronization is needed , the synchronizer 142 delays the leading video signal 22 and / or the audio signal 140 . analog and / or digital broadcasting techniques and circuitry are well known , so no further discussion is made . if , however , the reader desires a further explanation , the reader is invited to consult the following sources , with each incorporated herein by reference in its entirety : f errill l osee , rf s ystems , c omponents , and c ircuits h andbook ( 1997 ); l eenaerts et al ., c ircuit d esign for rf t ransceivers ( 2001 ); j oe c arr , rf c omponents and c ircuits ( 2002 ); w olfgang h oeg and t homas l auterbach , d igital a udio b roadcasting ( 2003 ); and a nna r udiakova and v ladimir k rizhanovski , a dvanced d esign t echniques for rf p ower a mplifiers ( 2006 ). exemplary embodiments , as earlier explained , may determine whether synchronization is desired . for example , the audio content identifier 172 is compared to the video content identifier 30 . if a partial or full match is found , then a determination may be made that the audio signal 140 and the separately - received video signal 22 likely correspond to the same content . exemplary embodiments thus confirm that the audio signal 140 and the video signal 22 should be synchronized . once synchronization is desired , exemplary embodiments may compare time stamps . the audio time stamps 146 are compared to the video time stamps 144 , as explained above . whenever a lead or a lag condition is detected , exemplary embodiments implement a delay in the audio signal 140 , the video signal 22 , or both . when , for example , the audio signal 140 is digital , exemplary embodiments may divert the audio signal 140 to the buffer memory ( shown as reference numeral 174 in fig8 ). as the digital audio signal 140 accumulates in the buffer memory , the audio signal 140 is delayed in comparison to the video signal 22 . the video signal 22 , alternatively or additionally , may similarly be stored in the buffer memory when the video content leads the audio content . exemplary embodiments then release the buffered audio signal 140 and / or video signal 22 when synchronization is achieved . fig1 is a schematic illustrating yet another operating environment in which exemplary embodiments may be implemented . here the electronic device 20 is illustrated as a television or set - top receiver 220 that receives the video signal 22 and the separate audio signal 140 . the video signal may be broadcast along a wireline , cable , and / or satellite portion of the communications network 24 , while the audio signal 140 is separately and wirelessly received at an rf receiver 222 as a terrestrial broadcast . while the television or set - top receiver 220 may receive the audio signal 140 at any frequency of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum , here the audio signal 140 is wirelessly received at the radio - frequency portion of the spectrum . the audio signal 140 may or may not be modulated onto a carrier signal 224 . the audio signal 140 , for example , may be amplitude modulated or frequency modulated ( e . g ., am or fm ) onto the carrier signal 224 . the audio signal 140 may additionally or alternatively be broadcast from a satellite using any frequency of any portion of the electromagnetic spectrum , and the satellite broadcast may or may not be modulated onto the carrier signal 224 . here , then , the electronic device 20 may be an am - fm real time television - capable device with broadband capability to wirelessly receive television signals and / or rf audio signals . regardless , the electronic device 20 may also receive time stamps and content identifiers . the electronic device 20 may receive the video time stamps 144 and the video content identifier 30 encoded within the video signal 22 . the electronic device 20 may also receive the audio time stamps 146 and the audio content identifier 172 . the audio time stamps 146 and the audio content identifier 172 may be encoded within the audio signal 140 and , if desired , modulated onto the carrier signal 224 . exemplary embodiments may then proceed as discussed above . the demodulator 208 may demodulate the audio signal 140 , the audio time stamps 146 , and / or the audio content identifier 172 , from the carrier signal 224 . exemplary embodiments may compare the audio content identifier 172 to the video content identifier 30 . if a partial or full match is found , then the audio signal 140 and the separately - received video signal 22 may correspond to the same content and may be synchronized . the audio time stamps 146 may be compared to the video time stamps 144 , as explained above . when a lead or a lag condition is detected , exemplary embodiments may implement a delay in the audio signal 140 , the video signal 22 , or both to synchronize the audio signal 140 and the separately - received video signal 22 . fig1 is a schematic illustrating still another operating environment in which exemplary embodiments may be implemented . here the video signal 22 is received , processed , and presented by a television or computer 240 , while the audio signal 140 is separately received by an am / fm radio 242 . the am / fm radio 242 includes the rf receiver 222 that wirelessly receives the audio signal 140 as a terrestrial broadcast . the user , for example , may be watching a football game on the television or computer 240 , yet the user prefers to listen to play - by - play action from radio announcers . unfortunately , though , the separately - received audio signal 140 may lead the video signal 22 by several seconds . the radio announcer &# 39 ; s commentary , then , is out - of - synchronization with the television video signal 22 . exemplary embodiments , then , may delay the audio signal 140 . the user interface 130 may be used to establish an amount of delay introduced by the synchronizer 142 . the user interface 130 , for example , may be graphical ( as illustrated and explained with reference to fig1 , 5 , and 8 ), or the user interface 130 may be a physical knob , slider , or other means for adjusting delay . when the user notices that the audio signal 140 leads the video signal 22 , the user may adjust the user interface 130 to introduce a delay into the leading audio signal 140 . the user refines the delay until the audio signal 140 is synchronized to the video signal 22 . fig1 is a schematic illustrating another operating environment in which exemplary embodiments may be implemented . here the user has multiple electronic devices 20 operating in the user &# 39 ; s residence , business , building , or other premise . some of the electronic devices 20 may receive analog signals and some of the electronic devices 20 may receive digital signals . some of the electronic devices 20 may receive audio signals and some of the electronic devises 20 may receive video signals . when all the electronic devices 20 receive signals that correspond to the same content , the user may need to synchronize one or more of the electronic devices 20 . when , for example , all the electronic devices 20 receive the same football game , any leading or lagging audio / video signal may be annoying . exemplary embodiments , then , allow the user to individually synchronize any of the electronic devices 20 for an enjoyable entertainment experience . as fig1 illustrates , exemplary embodiments may operate in one or more of the electronic devices 20 . an instance of the alternate audio application 34 , for example , may operate in a computer 260 . the computer 260 may receive the video signal 22 and the separate audio signal 140 from the communications network 24 . another instance of the alternate audio application 34 may operate in a set - top receiver 262 that also receives the video signal 22 and the separate audio signal 140 from the communications network 24 . yet another instance of the alternate audio application 34 may operate in an analog television 264 that receives a terrestrially - broadcast analog version 266 of the video signal 22 . another instance of the alternate audio application 34 may operate in a digital television 268 that receives a terrestrially - broadcast standard definition or high - definition digital version 270 of the video signal 22 . more instances of the alternate audio application 34 may even operate in a wireless phone 272 and an am / fm radio 274 . exemplary embodiments permit synchronization of all these electronic devices 20 . when all the electronic devices 20 receive signals that correspond to the same content , some of the electronic devices 20 may lead or lag , thus producing an unpleasant entertainment experience . exemplary embodiments , however , allow the user to delay the audio and / or video signals received at any of the electronic devices 20 . the user may thus synchronize audio and video outputs to ensure the content remains pleasing . fig1 is a block diagram further illustrating the electronic device 20 , according to even more exemplary embodiments . when either the audio signal 140 or the video signal 22 lags , here the synchronizer 142 may divert a leading signal 300 to a first delay circuit 302 . the first delay circuit 302 may comprise clocked and / or unclocked circuits or components . if clocked , a reference or clock signal 304 may be received at the first delay circuit 302 . the leading signal 300 propagates through the first delay circuit 302 . as the leading signal 300 propagates , delays may be introduced by the first delay circuit 302 . the amount of delay may be determined according to the complexity and / or the number of components within the first delay circuit 302 . when a delayed signal 306 emerges from the first delay circuit 302 , the delayed signal 306 may be synchronized with a lagging signal 308 . the delayed signal 306 may then be diverted through , or “ peeled off ” by , a first gate circuit 310 and sent to the processing circuitry 156 for audible presentation . more delay may be needed . the first delay circuit 302 may introduce a predetermined amount of delay . suppose , for example , that the first circuit introduces twenty milliseconds ( 20 msec .) of delay in the audio signal 140 . if twenty milliseconds of delay does not satisfy the threshold time 152 , then more delay may be needed . the first gate circuit 310 , then , may feed , or cascade , the delayed signal 306 to a second delay circuit 312 . the second delay circuit 312 introduces additional delay , depending on its complexity and / or number of components . if this additional delay is sufficient , then a second gate circuit 314 diverts an additionally delayed signal 316 to the processing circuitry 156 . if more delay is again needed , the second gate circuit 314 may feed or cascade the additionally delayed signal 316 back to the first delay circuit 302 for additional delay . according to exemplary embodiments , the leading signal 300 , then , may cascade or race through the first delay circuit 302 and through the second delay circuit 312 until synchronization is achieved . fig1 depicts other possible operating environments for additional aspects of the exemplary embodiments . fig1 illustrates that the alternate audio application 34 and / or the synchronizer 142 may alternatively or additionally operate within various other devices 400 . fig1 , for example , illustrates that the alternate audio application 34 and / or the synchronizer 142 may entirely or partially operate within a personal / digital video recorder ( pvr / dvr ) 402 , personal digital assistant ( pda ) 404 , a global positioning system ( gps ) device 406 , an interactive television 408 , an internet protocol ( ip ) phone 410 , a pager 412 , or any computer system and / or communications device utilizing a digital processor and / or digital signal processor ( dp / dsp ) 414 . the device 400 may also include watches , radios , vehicle electronics , clocks , printers , gateways , and other apparatuses and systems . because the architecture and operating principles of the various devices 400 are well known , the hardware and software componentry of the various devices 400 are not further shown and described . if , however , the reader desires more details , the reader is invited to consult the following sources , all incorporated herein by reference in their entirety : a ndrew t anenbaum , c omputer n etworks ( 4 th edition 2003 ); w illiam s tallings , c omputer o rganization and a rchitecture : d esigning for p erformance ( 7 th ed ., 2005 ); and d avid a . p atterson & amp ; j ohn l . h ennessy , c omputer o rganization and d esign : t he h ardware / s oftware i nterface ( 3 rd . edition 2004 ); l awrence h arte et al ., gsm s uperphones ( 1999 ); s iegmund r edl et al ., gsm and p ersonal c ommunications h andbook ( 1998 ); and j oachim t isal , gsm c ellular r adio t elephony ( 1997 ); the gsm standard 2 . 17 , formally known subscriber identity modules , functional characteristics ( gsm 02 . 17 v3 . 2 . 0 ( 1995 - 01 ))”; the gsm standard 11 . 11 , formally known as specification of the subscriber identity module — mobile equipment ( subscriber identity module — me ) interface ( gsm 11 . 11 v5 . 3 . 0 ( 1996 - 07 ))”; m icheal r obin & amp ; m ichel p oulin , d igital t elevision f undamentals ( 2000 ); j erry w hitaker and b lair b enson , v ideo and t elevision e ngineering ( 2003 ); j erry w hitaker , dtv h andbook ( 2001 ); j erry w hitaker , dtv : t he r evolution in e lectronic i maging ( 1998 ); and e dward m . s chwalb , i tv h andbook : t echnologies and s tandards ( 2004 ). fig1 is a flowchart illustrating a method of retrieving audio signals , according to more exemplary embodiments . a video signal is received ( block 500 ). the video signal may comprise the alternate audio tag 28 , the video content identifier 30 , the video time stamps 144 , the threshold information 186 , and / or the listing 58 of alternate audio sources that correspond to the video signal . in response to the alternate audio tag 28 , a query is sent for an alternate audio source that corresponds to the video content identifier ( block 502 ). a query result is received that identifies an audio signal that corresponds to the video content identifier and that is separately received from the video signal ( block 504 ). a selection is received that selects an alternate audio source from the listing and / or from the query result ( block 506 ). another query is sent for the alternate audio source ( block 508 ), and a separate audio signal is received ( block 510 ). the separate audio signal may comprise the audio content identifier 172 , the audio time stamps 146 , and the threshold information 186 . the audio time stamps are compared to the video time stamps ( block 512 ). when an audio time stamp exceeds a corresponding video time stamp by a threshold time , then the audio signal is delayed until the audio time stamps are within the threshold time of the video time stamps ( block 514 ). when a video time stamp exceeds a corresponding audio time stamp by the threshold time , then the video signal is delayed until the video time stamps are within the threshold time of the audio time stamps ( block 516 ). exemplary embodiments may be physically embodied on or in a computer - readable medium . this computer - readable medium may include cd - rom , dvd , tape , cassette , floppy disk , memory card , and large - capacity disk ( such as iomega ®, zip ®, jazz ®, and other large - capacity memory products ( iomega ®, zip ®, and jazz ® are registered trademarks of iomega corporation , 1821 w . iomega way , roy , utah 84067 , www . iomega . com ). this computer - readable medium , or media , could be distributed to end - subscribers , licensees , and assignees . these types of computer - readable media , and other types not mention here but considered within the scope of the exemplary embodiments . a computer program product comprises processor - executable instructions for synchronizing audio and video content . while the exemplary embodiments have been described with respect to various features , aspects , and embodiments , those skilled and unskilled in the art will recognize the exemplary embodiments are not so limited . other variations , modifications , and alternative embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the exemplary embodiments .	7
with reference to fig1 a computer data interface 100 in accordance with the invention connects a desktop computer 102 with a hand - held or palmtop computer 104 . the hand - held computer may be , for example , a casio b . o . s . s ., sharp wizard , hewlett - packard , or psion hand - held computer . throughout the specification , the term desktop computer is hereby defined as including ibm , ibm compatible , apple , and similar microcomputers , whether they be designed for the desktop use only or portable computers . further , the term &# 34 ; personal computer &# 34 ; ( pc ) is used throughout the specification to refer to ibm and ibm - compatible computers and the term &# 34 ; macintosh &# 34 ; is used to refer to computers produced by the apple corporation . each computer will typically include a display , keyboard , processor , and volatile and nonvolatile memories . further , the desktop and hand - held computers 102 and 104 include communications ports 106 and 108 , respectively , that facilitate communications with other computers and peripheral devices . in one embodiment , the computer data interface includes a cable 110 having connectors 112 and 114 that may be connected to the communications ports 106 and 108 , respectively , to provide data transmission between the desktop and hand - held computers . alternatively , the computers may communicate through a wireless link , as described further below . the computer data interface also includes a level conversion circuit 116 , preferably housed with or adjacent to the connector 114 , that enables the desktop and hand - held computers to communicate effectively . software running on each computer interprets the signals being sent back and forth across computer data interface . such software is known in the art , and thus is not described herein . fig2 illustrates a first exemplary embodiment of the computer data interface 100 for use in connecting a pc to a casio b . o . s . s . ( boss ) in accordance with the invention . as shown on the left , the computer data interface is connected to the pc using either a conventional db - 25 connector or a conventional db - 9 connector . the specific pins on the db - 25 and db - 9 that are used by the computer data interface and their functions are listed below : ______________________________________db - 25 connector db - 9 connector function______________________________________pin 2 pin 3 t × d ( transmit data ) pin 7 pin 5 groundpin 20 pin 4 dtr (+ v ) pin 3 pin 2 r × d ( receive data ) pins 4 & amp ; 5 pins 7 & amp ; 8 rts & amp ; cts (- v ) ______________________________________ opposite the db - 25 and db - 9 connectors , the computer data interface is connected to a casio boss through a phono plug ( connector 114 ) that includes receive ( r ), transmit ( t ), and ground ( b ) contacts . to transfer data from the pc to the boss , the level conversion circuit 116 includes a transistor q1 having its base connected to the txd pin of the connector 112 through a resistor r1 as well as to ground of the pc through a resistor r2 . the collector of transistor q1 is connected to the receive contact r on connector 114 . the emitter of transistor q1 is connected to ground on the pc through a resistor r3 and directly to ground on the boss via the ground contact b of connector 114 . the transistor q1 is preferably an npn transistor . suitable values for the resistors r1 , r2 , and r3 are 4 . 7 kiloohm ( kω ), 4 . 7 kωand 270 ω , respectively . the operation of the level conversion circuit may be briefly described as follows : by convention , contact r on connector 114 is kept high internally by the boss . when data are not being transmitted by the pc or when sending a logical zero , the txd line of the pc is low and transistor q1 is in an off state . in this instance , transistor q1 is an &# 34 ; open - collector ,&# 34 ; and thus has no effect on r . conversely , when a logical one is being transmitted , the txd line becomes high , turning transistor q1 &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; and pulling r to ground . software running on the pc and boss controls the operation of the computers to change and sense , respectively , the voltage levels on the txd and r lines , thereby accomplishing data transfer . it has been found that to ensure proper operation of the level conversion circuit 116 , the transistor q1 must be in relatively close proximity to the boss . otherwise , interference on the line between the boss and the transistor q1 may cause r on the connector 114 to be pulled low , causing spurious results during data transfer . thus , the level conversion circuit 116 is preferably placed adjacent to the connector 114 , with the length of cable 110 extending from circuit 116 to connector 112 . in transferring data from the boss to the pc , the invention allows the boss or other computer to send data to a pc without requiring any external power and using very few discrete components . as will be understood from the following description , this is accomplished by establishing a path between the positive voltage source of the pc and its receive line rxd of the pc when a logical one is to be transmitted , and isolating the positive voltage source otherwise . in accordance with the invention , a low power signal from the hand - held device is used to establish the path during transmission of a logical one . since the pc &# 39 ; s own power is used to drive the receiving line of the pc , the power required of the hand - held computer to communicate with the pc is negligible . the basic components in the level conversion circuit 114 that are required to transfer data from the boss to the pc include a field - effect transistor ( fet ) q2 , a zener diode d1 , and a resistor r5 . the resistor r5 connects rxd of connector 112 to the negative voltage source rts of the pc . the gate of the fet q2 is connected to contact t of the connector 114 through a resistor r6 and to ground on the connector 112 through a zener diode d2 . specifically , the anode of diode d2 is directly connected to ground on the pc and connected to ground on the boss through the resistor r3 . the cathode of diode d3 is connected to the gate of transistor q2 . the drain of q2 is connected to the rx pin on connector 112 through a resistor r7 . specific connections for the source of transistor q2 include a connection between the cathode of diode d1 and the source , and a connection from the anode to ground of the pc . the source of transistor q2 is also connected to the positive voltage source dtr (+ v ) of the pc through a resistor rs . finally , the source is connected to the cathode of the diode d2 through a resistor r9 . with regard to the operation of the level conversion circuit 116 during data transfer from the boss to the pc , the diode d1 sets the threshold for turning q2 on and off by clamping the positive voltage source dtr to approximately 5 . 1 volts . when t is high , the potential at the gate of q2 will be around 3 - 5 volts , and q2 will be in an off state . thus , there is no current flowing between the source and drain , and rxd will continue to be pulled low by the negative voltage source rts (- v ) of the pc . when t goes low , q2 turns on , and rx is connected to the clamped positive voltage source dtr , pulling rx to a high state . in this manner , data transfer is accomplished with the logistics handled by software . transistor q2 is preferably an fet rather than another type of transistor because field - effect transistors draw little or no current , saving the batteries on the boss . also , use of an fet is advantageous because the drain of the fet can be at a negative voltage while still allowing the threshold to be properly set such that the fet may be switched on and off using the transmit line t of the boss . in one embodiment , the diodes d1 and d2 are rated at 5 . 1 and 9 . 1 volts , respectively . a suitable value for the resistors r5 and r6 is on the order of 4 . 7 kω . a suitable value for resistors r7 and r8 is 270 ω ; and resistor r9 may be on the order of 1 mω . fig3 illustrates a second exemplary embodiment of a computer data interface 140 for use in connecting a pc to a sharp wizard in accordance with the invention . as in fig2 the computer data interface is connected to the pc using either a db - 25 connector or db - 9 connector . the computer data interface is connected to a sharp wizard using a 15 - pin interface connector 142 . the specific pins on the connector 142 and each pin &# 39 ; s function is listed below : ______________________________________15 - pin connector function______________________________________pin 2 t × d ( transmit data ) pin 7 groundpin 10 vc (+ v ) pin 3 r × d ( receive data ) ______________________________________ the computer data interface 140 includes a voltage level conversion circuit 144 that has many of the same components , performing the same functions , as the circuit previously described . these components have identical reference numerals . to transfer data from the pc to the sharp wizard , the voltage conversion circuitry includes an additional transistor q3 that is connected between the transistor q2 and the resistor r6 . specifically , the base of transistor q3 is connected to resistor r6 , the emitter is connected to the gate of transistor q2 , and the collector is connected to ground , i . e ., pin 7 of the connector 142 . it has been found that the data signals transmitted by the wizard are the inverse of those from the boss . the transistor q3 acts to invert data to be sent as it is transmitted , so that the transistor q2 performs as described above . the circuitry for transferring data from the pc to the wizard includes a diode d3 , a schottky diode d4 , and a pair of resistors r10 and r11 . the anode of the diode d3 is connected to the txd pin of connector 112 . the cathode of diode d3 is connected to the anode of diode d4 through the resistor r10 . the diode d3 essentially prevents negative voltage from reaching the receive line rxd of the wizard . thus , when a logical zero is present on the txd line of connector 112 , the voltage at rxd of the wizard will be at or near zero volts , and perceived as logical zero to the wizard . the resistors r10 and r11 act as a voltage divider when a logical one is being sent by the pc . the result is that the voltage levels presented to the wizard will be of sufficient magnitude to represent a logical one to the wizard , while still being within the sharp corporation &# 39 ; s specifications establishing maximum voltages that may be applied to the wizard . the diode d4 provides added assurance that maximum voltage tolerances are met . a suitable value for resistors r10 and r11 is 270 ω . fig4 illustrates the pin connections necessary to modify the computer data interfaces illustrated in fig2 and 3 for use with macintosh computers . specifically , macintosh computers typically include a din - 8 connector 150 having the following pins : ______________________________________din - 8 connector function______________________________________pin 2 t × d - ( transmit data ) pin 4 gnd ( ground ) pin 1 hsko (+ v ) pin 3 r × d - ( receive data ) ______________________________________ by connecting the pins of connector 150 as shown in fig4 i . e ., txd - to tx , ground to ground , hsk0 to dtr , and rxd - to rx , the computer data interface may be used to interface a macintosh with a boss using the voltage conversion circuit 116 of fig2 or a wizard using the voltage conversion circuit 144 of fig3 . in addition to the above connections , the rxd - pin is connected to ground through a resistor r12 , which may be on the order of 4 . 7 kω . unlike pc &# 39 ; s , the din - 8 connector does not provide access to a negative power supply . however , pulling the rx line of the voltage conversion circuit to ground , as opposed to - v in the pc version , is adequate . for use with a macintosh the voltage conversion circuits generally operate in the same manner described above . as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art , the computer data interface is relatively inexpensive to build , does not require any external power , and does not require integrated circuits . it will also be appreciated that the computer data interface may be used to connect desktop computers to other types of computers besides the boss and wizard . along this line , the teaching of the invention may be used by virtually any device that a designer wishes to have communicate with desktop computers , e . g ., sensors for temperature , humidity , etc . virtually no power is required of the communicating device because the desktop computer &# 39 ; s power is used to drive the transmit line . this feature is particularly advantageous when the invention is used with battery - operated devices . further , the computer data interface may incorporate wireless communications technology to provide a data path between the computers and thus alleviate the necessity of a cable . while the preferred embodiment of the invention has been illustrated and described , it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention .	6
embodiments of the present invention will hereinafter be described with reference to the accompanying drawings . reference numerals in the sheets of drawings should identify the following elements and parts . reference numeral 1 denotes a recording unit , reference numeral 2 denotes identification information , reference numeral 3 denotes a groove portion , reference numeral 4 denotes a land portion , reference numeral 5 denotes a track switching portion , reference numeral 6 denotes a non - switching portion , reference numeral 7 denotes a beam spot , reference numeral 15 denotes a wobbling , reference numeral 16 denotes a one cycle of wobbling , reference numeral 21 denotes identification information disposed at a first position , reference numeral 22 denotes identification information disposed at a second position , reference numeral 23 denotes a prepit , reference numerals 11 and 12 denote recording units , reference numerals 91 , 92 , 93 denote grooves , and reference numerals 81 , 82 denote information recording portions , respectively . fig5 shows the manner in which tracks and sectors of the information recording medium according to the present invention are disposed . as shown in fig5 a plurality of groups 91 , 92 and 93 are disposed in the radius direction of a disk - like recording medium 8 . the track 3 is wobbled by a very small amount in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 . each track 3 is divided into a plurality of circular arc - like sectors ( recording units ) 1 arrayed in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 . the length of the circular arc - like sector 1 is selected in such a manner that the number of the divided sectors per circumference of the disk - like recording medium 8 increases in the groups located at the position of the larger radius so as to make the length of the circular arc - like sector 1 become almost constant independently of the groups . fig1 shows an example of the manner in which tracks are disposed within one group of the information recording medium according to the present invention . as shown in fig1 within one group , there are alternately located groove portion information tracks 3 having a width of 0 . 7 μm and a depth of 60 nm and a land portion information track 4 having a width of 0 . 7 μm . the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 are connected to each other by a switching portion 5 . specifically , the groove portion information track 3 is arranged such that it is connected to the adjacent land portion information track 4 after one circumference of the track , and the land portion information track 4 is arranged such that it is connected to the adjacent groove portion information track 3 after one circumference of the track . each track is divided into a plurality of circular arc - like recording units such as sectors , and identification information 2 is disposed at the head of each of the information recording units 1 . in this example , the length of the sector is about 8 mm , which corresponds to a user capacity of 2048 bytes . the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 are wobbled with an amplitude of about 20 nm in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 . a wobble cycle during which the groove portion information 3 and the land portion information track 4 are wobbled in the radius direction was set to 1 / 145 of the sector length , i . e . about 55 μm . the ratio of 1 : 145 was selected in such a manner that the wobbling cycle becomes an integral multiple of the length ( channel bit length ) of recorded data . according to this arrangement , it becomes easy to generate a recording clock from the wobbling . fig2 and 3 are respectively fragmentary plan views illustrating information identification information portions in an enlarged scale . fig2 schematically shows a portion 6 in which preceding and succeeding tracks of identification information are connected by the groove portion information tracks 3 and the land portion information tracks 4 . also , fig3 schematically shows a portion in which preceding and succeeding tracks are connected at the groove portion information tracks 3 and the land portion information tracks 4 , i . e . a portion in which identification information is disposed such that the positions of the directions extended along the information tracks are different in the adjacent tracks but agree with the track advanced or delayed by two tracks . as shown in fig2 identification information is disposed to be radial in the radius direction at the two places of the first position 21 and the second position 22 . the preceding and succeeding tracks are connected by the groove portion information tracks 3 and the land portion information tracks 4 . in this illustrated example of fig2 each identification information corresponds to the recording area of the right - hand side information track . further , identification information corresponding to the right - hand side groove portion information track 3 is disposed at the first position 21 , and identification information corresponding to the land portion information track 4 is disposed at the second position 22 . specifically , the positions of the identification information along the information tracks are different from each other in the adjacent tracks but agree with each other in the tracks advanced or delayed by the two tracks . in the switching portion 5 of fig3 the preceding and succeeding tracks of identification information are connected to each other in the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 . also in this case , each identification information corresponds to the recording area of the right - hand side information track . as shown in fig3 identification information corresponding to the right - hand side groove portion information track 3 is disposed at the first position 21 , and identification information corresponding to the land portion information track 4 is disposed at the second position 22 . as a consequence , when the beam spot 7 scans the land portion information track 4 , only pits of the one side are constantly reproduced . there is then no risk that a crosstalk occurs from the adjacent track . therefore , it becomes possible to satisfactorily reproduce address information from the prepits without crosstalk . the address information at the prepit is recorded by an 8 / 16 ( eight - to - sixteen ) modulation code ( channel bit length is 0 . 2 μm ). fig4 is a perspective view illustrating the manner in which tracks and identification information are configured according to the embodiment of the present invention , highlighting the manner in which identification information is formed by small concave portions ( pits ) 23 . according to this embodiment , since the pits 23 are equally disposed on both sides of the track ( land portion or the groove portion ), a bad influence exerted by the pits 23 upon a tracking servo signal can be cancelled out . accordingly , it is possible to suppress a track offset to be sufficiently small . further , when the land portion information track 4 , for example , is reproduced , address information of the first prepit portion 21 and address information of the second prepit portion 22 are reproduced continuously . therefore , if information is disposed in such a fashion that both of the address information of the first prepit portion 21 and the address information of the second prepit portion 22 may be integrated as one address information , then address ( track no . ), i . e . identification information can be set independently of the land portion information track 4 and the groove portion information track 3 . specifically , it becomes possible to discriminate the land portion information track 4 and the groove portion information track 3 from each other by continuously reproducing the address information of the first prepit portion 21 and the address information of the second prepit portion 22 . fig6 shows concretely an example of the manner in which identification information is numbered . in fig6 there are illustrated the identification information of the recording area 11 and the identification information of the recording area 12 . in this example , identification information is recorded on and / or reproduced from the recording medium by relatively scanning detection spots from left to right of fig6 . a groove portion information track k of the left - hand side , for example , is connected to a land portion information track k + 1 of the right - hand side of the switching portion 5 . a land portion information track k + 1 of the left - hand side is connected to the land portion information track k + 1 after one circumference . in this example , identification information of an information recording area 81 of the groove portion information track k , for example , is n − 1 + s where s denotes a sum of optical recording information units per circumference of the track . when the identification information portion 6 of this track is reproduced by the beam spot or the like , n − 1 + 2s is reproduced as identification information located at the first position 21 , and n − 1 + s is reproduced as identification information located as the second position 22 . in this case , if a smaller number is constantly used as a recording area no . in advance , then n − 1 + s is used as identification information of the information recording area 81 of this groove portion information track k . when the land portion information track k − 1 is scanned by the beam spot or the like , n − 1 is similarly used as identification information located at the first position 21 . at the same time , it is possible to discriminate the groove portion information track and the land portion information track from each other by detecting whether the identification information located at the first position 21 or the identification information located at the second position 22 is used . when the information track located at the track switching portion 5 is reproduced , a correspondence of identification information and recorded information can be judged in exactly the same manner , and also the groove portion information track and the land portion information track can be discriminated from each other in exactly the same way . accordingly , it is possible to switch the track polarity between the groove portion information track and the land portion information track by making effective use of the above - mentioned relationship . while there are two sets of the first and second identification information portions as described above , the present invention is not limited thereto , and there may be provided a plurality of sets of identification information portions . if there are provided four sets of identification information portions , for example , then first and third prepit portions are located under the groove portions and second and fourth prepit portions are located above the groove portions . if the number of the prepit portions increases , then the information recording medium according to the present invention becomes resistant to defects or the like , and therefore becomes highly - reliable . here , a phase change type recording film ( gesbte ) was used as a recording film of this information recording medium . accordingly , a recording mark is produced in the form of amorphous area . an example of an information recording and / or reproducing method using the recording medium according to the embodiment 1 will be described with reference to fig7 . as shown in fig7 the information recording medium 8 according to the embodiment 1 is rotated by a motor 162 . a light intensity control circuit 171 controls a light generating circuit 131 so that the light generating circuit 131 generates light 122 having a light intensity instructed by a central control circuit 151 . a converging circuit 132 converges the light 122 generated from the light generating circuit 131 to form a beam spot 7 on the information recording medium 8 . reflected light 123 of the light 122 is detected by a photo detecting circuit 133 . the photo detecting circuit 133 comprises a plurality of split photo detectors . a wobble detecting circuit 191 reproduces information from the information recording medium 8 by using a reproduced signal 130 from the split photo detectors of the photo detecting circuit 133 . when a wobbling of the track on the information recording medium 8 is detected , there is used a differential output among the outputs from the split photo detectors of the photo detecting circuit 133 . the reason that the differential output is utilized is based on such a fact that an intensity distribution of diffracted light from the beam spot is changed depending on a positional relationship between the beam spot and the track . on the basis of the wobble signal detected by the wobble detecting circuit 191 , information indicative of the positional relationship between the beam spot and the track and further prepit identification information , a position control circuit 161 controls the position of the converging circuit 132 and a rotation frequency of the motor 162 . when the position control circuit 161 controls the rotation frequency of the motor 162 , the rotation frequency is controlled in such a manner that a reproduced wobble signal may have a previously - determined constant value . if the rotational frequency of the motor 162 is controlled by the position control circuit 161 as described above , then the rotational speed of the motor 162 can be automatically and properly controlled independently of the groups on the information recording medium 8 . also , since this rotation information of the motor 162 has one cycle of about 55 μm , the rotation information is very high in density , and it becomes possible to control the rotation of the motor 162 with a high accuracy . furthermore , since this rotation information is disposed all over one revolution of the disk , even when a part of the rotation information is dropped out by some causes such as smudges or defects , the rotation information can be reproduced from the information recording medium 8 with a high accuracy satisfactorily . a description will now be given on a method of recording and / or reproducing information on and / or from an information recording medium by generating a clock synchronized with a phase of a wobble signal when information is recorded and / or reproduced . in order to generate the above - mentioned clock synchronized with the phase of the wobble signal , there is used a pll ( phase - locked loop ) circuit . since this clock is accurately synchronized with the wobble information of the information recording medium , if information is recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium by using this clock , then information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium at a timing perfectly synchronized with the position on the information recording medium . therefore , information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium without providing unnecessary buffer areas on the information recording medium , and it is possible to obtain an information recording medium which is high in format efficiency . as a consequence , there can be raised a recording capacity of the information recording medium . furthermore , since the wobble information ( rotation information ) is disposed all over one revolution of the disk , even when a part of the wobble information is dropped out , information can be reproduced from the information recording medium with a high reliability satisfactorily . fig5 shows the manner in which the tracks and the sectors of the recording medium according to the embodiment of the present invention are disposed . as shown in fig5 there are disposed a plurality of zones ( groups ) 91 , 92 , and 93 in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 having a diameter of 120 mm . in this example of fig5 there are divided 24 zones of which the radiuses are ranging from about 24 mm to 58 mm . accordingly , one zone has a band width of about 1 . 4 mm . the groove portion information track 3 is wobbled by a very small amount in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 . each of the groove portion information track 3 is divided into a plurality of circular arc - like sectors ( recording units ) 1 arrayed in the radius direction of the disk - like recording medium 8 . the length of the circular arc - like sector 1 is made almost constant independently of the zones ( groups ) so that the number of the divided sectors per circumference increases in the zone located at the position of the larger radius . in this embodiment , each track 3 is divided in such a manner that there are provided 17 recording units 1 per circumference in the zone ( inner - most peripheral zone ) of the radius of about 25 mm . the number of the divided zones increases one by one in the outer peripheral zone . by using the information recording medium having the groups divided in such a manner that the number of the divided groups increases in the outer peripheral zone as described above , the lengths of the recording units 1 in the inner and outer peripheries of the information recording medium 8 can be made almost constant . in other words , the density of the rotation information can be made substantially constant , and the surface area ( i . e . whole surface ) of the information recording medium 8 can be used effectively . moreover , since information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium at the same rotational speed and with the same recording frequency within each group , an information recording and / or reproducing apparatus using the information recording medium can be simplified in configuration . it is needless to say that the lengths of the recording units are slightly different in the inside and the outside of each zone . fig1 shows an example of the manner in which tracks within one group are disposed in the information recording medium according to the present invention . as shown in fig1 there are alternately disposed the groove portion information tracks 3 having a width of 0 . 74 μm and a depth of 60 nm and the land portion information tracks 4 having a width of 0 . 74 μm . in each zone , there are disposed about 950 groove portion information tracks 3 and the land portion information tracks 4 of the same number as that of the groove portion information track 3 . the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 are connected to each other by the track switching portion 5 which is located at one place on one circumference of the disk . specifically , the groove portion information track 3 is connected to the adjacent land portion information track 4 after one circumference of the track , and the land portion information track 4 is connected to the adjacent groove portion information track 3 after one circumference of the track . each track is divided into a plurality of circular arc - like information recording units 1 , and the identification information 2 is disposed at the starting portion of each information recording unit 1 . in this example , the length of the information recording unit 1 is about 8 . 5 mm , which corresponds to a user capacity of 2048 bytes . the groove portion and the land portion are wobbled in the radius direction of the information recording medium by a half width amplitude of about 20 nm . the wobble cycle was set to 1 / 232 of the sector length or about 37 μm . the ratio of 1 : 232 is set not only within one group ( zone ) but also in all the recording units 1 on the disk . the ratio of 1 : 232 was selected in such a fashion that the wobble cycle becomes an integral multiple ( in this example , 186 times ) of the unit length ( channel bit length ) of the recorded data . accordingly , the length of the recording unit is equivalent to 232 × 186 = 43152 channel bits when it is expressed by the channel bit number . since the wobble cycle is equal to the integral multiples of the recording channel bit as described above , it is possible to easily generate a recording clock by multiplying the wobble frequency with an integral number . moreover , since the relationship between the information recording unit 1 and the duration of the wobbling cycle becomes equal over the whole surface of the disk , it becomes possible to generate the recording clock by using the signal obtained from the wobbling without switching the signal at the zone . thus , a density within the disk can be made almost uniform by the apparatus of the simple configuration , and the whole surface of the disk can be used efficiently . furthermore , if the rotational speed of the disk is controlled in such a manner that the wobbling frequency becomes constant , then it becomes possible to make a relative linear velocity between the beam spot and the information recording medium almost constant independently of the position of the information recording medium . if the linear velocity is made substantially constant as described above , then information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the recording medium under the same recording conditions independently of the position of the information recording medium . thus , the recording and reproducing characteristics of the information recording medium can be controlled with ease , and hence the recording apparatus and the information recording medium can be configured with ease . here , since the lengths of the recording areas 1 are slightly different in the inside and the outside of the zone , the duration of the wobble cycle of a reciprocal of an integral number of the recording unit also is different in the inner and outer peripheries of the zone . thus , it is needless to say that a linear velocity also is different slightly . however , because central angles formed by the recording units are constant within the zone , the revolution rate ( angular velocity ) within the zone become constants so that it becomes possible to access the information recording medium within the zone at a high speed . moreover , since the integral multiple ( 232 times ) of the wobbling cycle agrees with the length of the recording unit 1 , the phases of the wobbling signals can be perfectly connected to each other without fractions between the adjacent recording units 1 . thus , it is easy to generate a timing signal such as a clock over the consecutive recording units 1 by using the wobbling signal . the fact that the phases of the wobbling signals are perfectly connected to each other without fractions means that the phases of the wobbling signals are made continuous between the adjacent recording units 1 but the wobbling signals need not always be continuous from a physical standpoint . specifically , there might be used such an information recording medium in which a wobbling signal is dropped out at the boundary portion of the recording units 1 over several cycles . in that case , if such dropped - out portions are interpolated , then the phases of the wobbling signals may be connected between the adjacent recording units 1 . in actual practice , according to this embodiment , the identification information composed of prepits is provided at the starting portion of the recording unit and neither the groove portion information track 3 nor the land portion information track 4 exists with the result that the wobble signal is not formed at all . that is , the wobble signal is dropped out during about 11 . 2 cycles due to this identification information 2 . accordingly , while there exist about 220 . 8 wobble signals in actual practice , the length of the recording information unit becomes exactly 232 times the cycle of the wobble signal . here , the recording unit in this embodiment need not always agree with the length of the sector . for example , more than two sectors may be integrated as one recording unit , and identification information may be disposed within such integrated recording unit . moreover , a plurality of recording units may be integrated as a logical sector or a logical block necessary for correcting errors . at any rate , the recording unit in this embodiment is referred to as an area of substantially a constant length in which identification information is disposed at the starting portion thereof . fig2 and 3 are respectively plan views illustrating identification information portions of the information recording medium in an enlarged scale . fig2 shows a portion 6 in which preceding and succeeding tracks of identification information are connected at the groove portions and the land portions . fig3 shows a portion 5 in which preceding and succeeding tracks are connected at the groove portions and the land portions , i . e . a portion in which the positions at which identification information is arrayed along the information tracks are different between the adjacent tracks but agree with the track advanced or delayed by two tracks . as shown in fig2 identification information is disposed to be radial at a first position 21 and a second position 22 in the radius direction of the information recording medium . the preceding and succeeding tracks are connected to each other by the groove portion information tracks 3 and the land portion information tracks 4 . in this illustrated example , each identification information corresponds to the recording area of the groove portion information track 3 on the right - hand side of fig2 . further , identification information corresponding to the groove portion information track 3 on the right - hand side of fig2 is placed at the first position 21 , and identification information corresponding to the land portion information track 4 is placed at the second position 22 . specifically , the positions at which identification information is arrayed along the information tracks are different between the adjacent tracks but agree with the track which is advanced or delayed by two tracks . the wobble signal is of a sine wave shape which begins with the same phase relative to all information tracks . the wobble signal starts immediately after the identification information portion or starts via a few buffer areas . with this arrangement , if points at which phases of the sine - wave wobble signal become zero degree are connected to each other by the adjacent tracks , then these points are arrayed to be radial so that the track width is never changed by the wobble signal . there is then presented no risk that the wobble signal will exert a bad influence upon the recording and reproducing characteristics . if the phases of the wobble signals are not made uniform in each track , then there is produced a portion in which the track width is modulated by the wobble signal , thereby resulting in the recording and reproducing characteristics being affected considerably . therefore , as is evident from the above description of the present invention , in order to realize the present invention , it is very important to make the phases ( including polarities ) of the wobble signals uniform between the adjacent tracks . in the track switching portion 5 shown in fig3 the preceding and succeeding tracks of the identification information are connected to each other at the groove portion and the land portion . also in this case , each identification information corresponds to the recording area of the information track on the right - hand side of fig3 . identification information corresponding to the groove portion information track 3 on the right - hand side of fig3 is placed at the first position 21 , and identification information corresponding to the land portion information track 4 on the right - hand side of fig3 is placed at the second position 22 . therefore , when the beam spot 21 scans the land portion information track 4 , for example , only one pit is constantly reproduced . there is then no risk that a crosstalk from the adjacent track will occur . accordingly , it becomes possible to satisfactorily reproduce address information provided at the prepits without crosstalk . in this example , the address information provided at the prepits is recorded on the information recording medium by an 8 / 16 ( eight - to - sixteen ) modulation code ( channel bit length is 0 . 2 μm ). accordingly , a shortest pit length is about 0 . 6 μm . from a standpoint of simplifying the configuration of the information recording and / or reproducing apparatus , the modulation code of the prepit portion and the modulation code of the user information recording portion should preferably be made the same . in this embodiment , the modulation code and the recording linear density are both made the same with the result that most of the circuit portions of the information recording and / or reproducing apparatus can be made common . fig4 is a perspective view illustrating the manner in which tracks and identification information according to this embodiment are configured , highlighting the manner in which identification information is formed by small concave portions ( pits ) 23 . in this embodiment , since the pits 23 are equally disposed on both sides of the track ( the land portion or the groove portion ), an influence exerted upon a tracking servo signal by the pits 23 is cancelled out so that a track offset can be suppressed to be sufficiently small . further , when the land portion information track 4 is reproduced , the address information of the first prepit portion 21 and that of the second prepit portion 22 are reproduced continuously . therefore , if information is disposed in such a fashion that both of address information are integrated as one address information , then it is possible to separately set address ( track no . ), i . e . identification information independently of the land portion information track 4 and the groove portion information track 3 . specifically , if the address information of the first prepit portion 21 and the address information of the second prepit portion 22 are reproduced continuously , then it becomes possible to discriminate the land portion information track 3 and the groove portion information track 4 from each other . fig6 concretely illustrates the example of the manner in which identification information is numbered , showing identification information of the recording area 11 and identification information of the recording area 12 . in this example , information is recorded and / or reproduced while detection spots are relatively scanned from left to right of the information recording medium . as shown in fig6 a groove portion information track k on the left - hand side is connected to a right - hand side land portion information track k + 1 . the left - hand side land portion information track k + 1 is connected to this track after one circumference of the information recording medium . in this example , identification information of an information recording area 81 of the groove portion information track k is n − 1 + s where reference letter s denotes a sum of optical recording information units per circumference of the track . if the identification information portion 6 of this track is reproduced by the beam spot or the like , then n − 1 + 2s is reproduced as identification information existing at the first position 21 , and n − 1 + s is reproduced as identification information existing at the second position 22 . in this case , if a smaller number is constantly used as a recording area no . in advance , then n − 1 + s is adopted as identification information of the information recording area 81 of this groove portion information track k . when the land portion information track k − 1 is scanned , n − 1 is adopted as the identification information existing at the first position 21 similarly . at the same time , by the identification information existing at the first position 21 or the identification information existing at the second position 22 , it is possible to discriminate the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 from each other . when the information track placed at the track switching portion 5 is reproduced , the correspondence between the identification information and the recording area can be detected , and the groove portion information track 3 and the land portion information track 4 can be discriminated from each other in exactly the same manner as that described above . therefore , by using this relationship , it is possible to switch the track polarities of the groove portion information track and the land portion information track . while there are provided two sets of the first and second identification information portions as described above in this example , there may be provided a plurality of sets of identification information portions . if there are provided four sets of identification information portions , then the first and second prepit portions may be located on the lower side of the groove portion ( inside of the radius direction ), and the third and fourth prepit portions may be located on the upper side of the groove portion ( outside of the radius direction ). alternatively , the first and third prepit portions may be located on the lower side of the groove portion , and the second and fourth prepit portions may be located on the upper side of the groove portion . the information recording medium can be made more resistant to the defects or the like and become highly - reliable by increasing the number of the prepit portions . here , a phase change type recording film ( gesbte ) was used as a recording film . accordingly , a recording mark is produced in the form of an amorphous area . the manner in which information is recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium of the embodiment 4 by the information recording and / or reproducing apparatus shown in fig7 will be described below . as shown in fig7 the information recording medium 8 according to the embodiment 4 is rotated by the motor 162 . the light intensity control means 171 controls the light generating circuit 131 to generate the light 122 in such a way as to obtain a light intensity instructed by the central control circuit 151 . the converging circuit 132 converges the light 122 to form the beam spot 7 on the information recording medium 8 . the light 12 is detected by using the reflected light 123 from the beam spot 7 with the photo detecting circuit 133 . the photo detecting circuit 133 comprises a plurality of split photo detectors . the wobble detecting circuit 191 reproduces information from the information recording medium 8 by using the reproduced signal 130 from the split photo detectors of the photo detecting circuit 133 . when the wobble signal of the track on the information recording medium 8 is detected , there is used a differential output between the outputs from the split photo detectors of the photo detecting circuit 133 . this utilizes the fact that an intensity distribution of diffracted light from the beam spot is changed depending upon a positional relationship between the beam spot and the track . on the basis of the wobble signal detected by the reproducing means 191 , information indicative of the positional relationship between the beam spot and the track and prepit identification information , the position control circuit 161 controls the position of the converging circuit 132 , and also controls the rotation frequency of the motor 162 . in this case , the position control circuit 161 controls the rotation frequency of the motor 162 in such a manner that the frequency of the reproduced wobble signal becomes a previously - determined constant value . if the rotation frequency of the motor 162 is controlled by the position control circuit 161 as described above , then it is possible to automatically control the motor 162 independently of the zones on the information recording medium 8 so that the motor 162 can be rotated at a proper rotational speed . also , since this rotation information has one cycle of about 37 μm , the rotation information is considerably high in density , and it becomes possible to control the rotation of the motor 162 with a high accuracy . furthermore , since this rotation information is disposed all over one revolution of the disk , even when one portion of the rotation information is dropped out due to some causes such as smudges or defects , information can be satisfactorily reproduced from the information recording medium 8 highly reliably . fig8 shows examples of a reproduced signal 41 of wobble information and a reproduced signal 42 of identification information portion . in this example , photo detectors which are split at least by a half in the radius direction are used as a detector , and there is obtained a differential signal between the outputs from the two split photo detectors . specifically , there was used a detection system that is similar to a detection system of a push - pull signal used in an ordinary tracking control or the like . however , since the frequency of the wobble signal and the frequency of the identification information signal are higher than the band necessary for the tracking servo , there were prepared an amplifying apparatus and a differential circuit , both of which should be in accordance with the high frequency specification . there were obtained reproduced signals 421 , 422 , 423 and 424 in correspondence with the first , second , third and fourth identification information signals 21 , 22 , 23 and 24 . when the beam spot 7 is not overlapping the prepit 23 of the identification information portion 2 , reflected light is equally introduced into the above - mentioned split photo detectors so that a reproduced signal ( differential signal ) output is almost zero . whereas , under the condition that the beam spot 7 partly overlaps the prepit 23 ( see fig2 ), a distribution of reflected light from the beam spot 7 is largely deviated due to a diffraction effect , and the outputs from the split photo detectors are unbalanced . as a consequence , there is obtained a large differential signal output . inasmuch as the direction in which the distribution of reflected light is deviated at that time is different depending on the positional relationship between the beam spot and the pit , the differential output corresponding to the identification information portions 21 , 22 and the differential output corresponding to the identification information portions 23 , 24 are inverted in polarity . accordingly , if this polarity of the differential outputs is used , then it is possible to determine any one of the groove portion information track and the land portion information track in which the beam spot is positioned . identification information can be obtained when the resulting signal is converted into a binary signal and then decoded by a follow - up slice circuit ( not shown ). at that time , since error detection information is added to the identification information , it is possible to judge whether or not identification information is detected correctly . hence , there can be used only correct identification information in a plurality of identification information . the wobble signal is detected in a similar manner . specifically , since the positional relationship between the beam spot and the groove is modulated by the wobbling signal , there is obtained a signal output 41 shown in fig8 . however , since an amplitude ( track displacement amount : 20 nm ) of a wobble signal is small relative to the displacement amount ( about 0 . 3 μm ) of identification information , the amplitude of the wobble signal becomes smaller in proportion thereto . an example of the manner in which a timing signal ( clock signal ) is obtained from the wobble signal thus detected will be described with reference to fig1 a through 10d . initially , the reproduced signal 41 shown in fig8 is supplied to a limiter circuit shown in fig1 a , in which an identification information is limited in amplitude . then , by using the bandpass filter shown in fig1 b , only a signal having a component synchronized with the wobble signal is extracted from the reproduced signal . then , the resulting signal is converted into a binary signal by a comparator shown in fig1 c , and eventually , there is obtained the clock signal by using a phase - locked loop ( pll ) comprising a phase comparator , a filter circuit , a vco ( voltage - controlled oscillator ) and a divide - by - 186 circuit as shown in fig1 d . at that time , a filter characteristic used in the pll is set to be sufficiently lower than the frequency corresponding to 11 . 2 wobble cycles in this example in such a manner that the clock signal may be prevented from being affected by a dropped - out portion ( identification information portion ) of the wobble signal . in this embodiment , since the frequency of the wobble signal becomes 160 khz , the frequency band of the pll is set to about 2 khz . this frequency should preferably be set to be larger than a frequency ( about 700 hz ) corresponding to the length of the recording unit from a standpoint of a high - speed accessing . in this way , there was obtained the clock signal that was synchronized with the wobble signal . a method of recording and / or reproducing information on and / or from the information recording medium by using this clock signal and identification information will be described below . fig9 is a timing chart used to explain the manner in which information is recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium . in fig9 reference letters ( a ), ( b ), ( c ), and ( d ) denote an identification information detecting signal , a wobble signal , a clock signal , and a recording and reproducing timing signal , respectively . the identification information detecting signal is a signal indicating that identification information is detected normally . it is customary that the recording unit areas that should be recorded and / or reproduced are discriminated from each other based on this identification information detecting signal and that the recording and / or reproducing timing can be controlled . according to the present invention , when the identification information could not be normally detected as shown in fig9 ( crosses on ( a ) in fig9 show that identification information could not be detected normally ), it is possible to obtain the recording and reproducing timing signal instead of the identification information detecting signal by counting the clock signal obtained from the wobble signal based on the final identification information that was detected normally . according to this arrangement , even when identification information cannot be detected normally , there can be obtained the recording and reproducing timing signal . also , since this recording and reproducing timing signal is generated from the wobble signal synchronized with the information recording medium , even if there is an error such as a rotational speed of the information recording medium , the recording and reproducing timing signal can be obtained accurately . furthermore , even when a plurality of identification information cannot be detected continuously , there is no risk that errors will be accumulated . therefore , it becomes possible to configure an information recording and / or reproducing apparatus which can greatly allow errors of identification information itself . if the signal detected from the above - mentioned wobble signal and the identification information are combined as described above , then it becomes possible to identify the position of the beam spot at all positions on the disk . thus , information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium highly reliably . with the above - mentioned advantage , even if the information recording medium is not inspected at all when the information recording medium is shipped , it becomes possible to maintain the recording and / or reproduction highly reliable , thereby making it possible to reduce the cost of the information recording medium considerably . furthermore , since the information recording medium becomes very resistant to smudges , the information recording medium need not be protected from the smudges by some suitable means such as a case . therefore , it becomes possible to provide an inexpensive information recording medium . according to the aforementioned first to fifth embodiments of the present invention , since information can be recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium highly reliably , even if the information recording medium is not inspected at all when the information recording media are shipped , a high reliability with which information is recorded on and / or reproduced from the information recording medium can be maintained , thereby making it possible to reduce the cost of the information recording medium considerably . moreover , since the information recording medium according to the present invention becomes very resistant to smudges , the information recording medium need not be protected from the smudges by some suitable means such as a case . therefore , it becomes possible to provide an inexpensive information recording medium . further , since the recording units are arrayed to be radial in the radius direction of the information recording medium , the tracks can be accessed with ease , and a crosstalk between position information of respective recording units can be suppressed to the minimum . moreover , since the recording units are disposed in such a manner that the lengths of the circular arc - shaped portions which are the recording units are made almost the same , a recording density becomes substantially uniform within the disk , and hence it becomes possible to use the whole surface of the disk efficiently . moreover , the starting point and the ending point of the recording unit can be reliably detected by using the wobble cycle , and it becomes possible to detect the accurate position in the recording unit . also , since the length of the recording unit and the wobble cycle are perfectly synchronized with each other , by making the wobble frequency become constant , it is possible to automatically control the rotational speed of the information recording medium in such a fashion that the relative velocity of the information recording medium becomes almost constant . further , since it becomes easy to make the length of each recording unit on the information recording medium become constant , the length of the extra gaps on the information recording medium can be minimized . furthermore , since it is possible to record and / or reproduce information on and / or from the information recording medium while monitoring the displacement amount of the track , a reliability with which the positioning servo is effected can be improved greatly . according to the present invention , since the identification information is provided at every recording unit and the position information can be reliably obtained from the recording portion owing to the wobbles of the groove portion and the land portion , the recorded information can be accessed reliably and the recording information can be positioned on the information recording medium with a high accuracy . having described preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the accompanying drawings , it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments and that various changes and modifications can be effected therein by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims .	6
the invention will now be explained in detail with reference to fig1 to 4 illustrating an embodiment of the invention . fig1 is an overall exploded view of a tape cartridge embodying the invention . fig2 to 4 are explanatory views of essential parts of the invention . in fig2 and 4 lubricant sheets are omitted for a better understanding of the construction . as illustrated in fig1 the tape cartridge according to the present invention comprises a cartridge housing made up of an upper half casing 1 and a lower half casing 2 , a pair of hubs 3 around which a tape 4 is wound and which are turnably supported within the housing , lubricant sheets 5 , 6 placed above and below the hubs , said lower casing having a pair of holes 21 through which driving shafts of a recorder / reproducer to drive the hubs 3 are to be inserted , a slider 7 disposed along the outer surface of the lower casing 2 and made slidable to cover or uncover the holes , said slider 7 having a pair of holes 71 which are aligned with the holes 21 when the slider is slid backward to its open position to allow the insertion of the driving shafts , a hub brake 8 disposed between the inner wall of the upper casing and the lubricant sheet inside the cartridge , said hub brake having a pair of brake pawls 81 adapted to engage teeth 31 formed around the hubs 3 , and springs 9 by which the hub brake is urged toward the hubs to prevent unwanted rotation of the hubs . the tape 4 is partly extended between front openings 22 , 22 at the front of the housing by means of tape guides 23 , 23 , and when the cartridge is not in use the tape portion 4 exposed outside the housing is covered by the front lid 10 and slider 7 . when starting the use of the cartridge , the slider 7 is first forced back by drive means on the recorder side , leaving a tape loading area 24 ( fig2 ) exposed . then the front lid 10 opens . at this moment side lugs 11 of the front lid ( fig1 ) come in contact with the projections 85 at the ends of arms 84 of the hub brake 8 ( fig3 ), forcing the hub brake 8 frontward . this releases the brake pawls 81 out of engagement with the teeth 31 , setting the hubs 3 free to turn . tape pull - out pins p ( fig2 ) of a recorder / reproducer then enter the tape loading area 24 and pull out a tape portion 3 to a predetermined position . in accordance with the invention , as shown at ( a ) and ( b ) in fig3 the hub brake 8 comprises a main face plate part 82 , a pair of brake pawls protruding from the rear edge of the main face plate part 82 toward the hubs , connecting plate parts 83 perpendicularly bent and extended downwardly from the left and right ends of the main face plate part 82 , arms 84 extending frontwardly from the lower ends of the connecting plate parts 83 , and projections 85 formed at the front ends of the arms 84 , the main face plate part 82 having a spring hook 86 formed in the middle to hold the spring in place . the inner rear portions of the both connecting plate parts 83 to face the tape 4 are beveled 87 , tapering outwardly as indicated at ( b ) in fig3 . although these portions are beveled in the embodiment being described , they have only to be recessed and may take other shapes , for example , steps 89 as shown in fig6 . with the construction described above , the tape cartridge according to the present invention achieves the following effect . when the cartridge is used , the tape 4 is partly pulled out to the front of the housing by the pair of pins p . in the case of a large roll of tape , the exposed tape portion comes close to the nearer connecting plate part 83 of the hub brake 8 . however , the recess typified by a bevel 87 keeps the connecting plate part 83 and the tape portion 4 out of contact with each other . even when that tape portion comes by chance into sliding contact with the connecting plate part 83 , the bevel 87 protects the tape against damage .	6
fig1 and fig2 show a sleeve - like fastening stud 1 , in particular a weld stud , which is usable for an assembly system according to the invention but is also suitable for other applications . the weld stud 1 is weldable by either of its sleeve ends to a structure . it has a structure 5 comprising a groove 2 extending round virtually in a peripheral direction and a burr 7 , which form an external thread . the groove 2 is bordered by flanks 3 . the sleeve - like weld stud 1 is radially resilient by virtue of a continuous slot 8 running from top to bottom . the radial resilience of the weld stud is further increased by an additional axial window 9 , which preferably extends over at least half the axial length of the weld stud 1 , has a smaller dimension in peripheral direction than in axial direction and is disposed approximately at the opposite side of the weld stud 1 to the slot 8 . two or more of such axial windows may alternatively be provided , which should then together with the slot 8 be distributed substantially uniformly over the periphery . axial windows 8 are advantageous particularly when the material or the thickness of the wall of the weld stud would otherwise not allow a satisfactory radial resilience . the weld stud 1 has a frontal sleeve opening 4 both at the top and bottom . fig3 to fig5 show a line holder 20 for an assembly system 1 ; 20 according to the invention . the line holder 20 has , at opposing sides of the receiving space 21 for receiving the weld stud 1 , in each case a line clip 25 , 26 for clipping in lines of appropriate cross section . the line clips 25 , 26 are flexible . the line holder 20 is manufactured by injection moulding from plastic material and has a structure comprising a plurality of raised portions 23 , which extend at right angles to the peripheral direction of the wall 22 and / or of the weld stud 1 , i . e . in longitudinal direction , and are formed on the inner surface 28 of the wall 22 in the form of longitudinal ribs 23 . the line holder 20 further comprises a locking cap 27 for securing the retaining connection between the line clips 25 , 26 and a clipped - in line . after the line holder 20 has been mounted onto the weld stud 1 , the locking cap 27 is movable from a first position ( see fig4 ), in which it allows a line to be clipped in , into a second position ( see fig5 ), in which it restricts the flexibility of the line clips 25 , 26 . in other embodiments of the assembly part according to the invention , the assembly part is a line holder having only one or more than two line clips 25 , 26 . securing of the retaining connection is effected in said case in the same manner as described here . in the special embodiment of the line holder 20 , the line clips 25 , 26 and the wall 22 of the receiving space 21 , in each case at sides lying opposite one another , delimit a gap 24 which the locking cap 27 in the second position at least approximately fills . it is advantageous that the line clips 25 , 26 comprise a resilient enclosure 29 , 30 for holding a line portion and each having a longitudinal opening 31 for clipping - in of the line . the line clips 25 , 26 further comprise a bridge - like resilient supporting element 32 , 33 , which is connected by a first foot 34 in a region along the longitudinal opening 31 to the enclosure 29 , 30 and which is connected by a second foot 35 in a region lying substantially opposite the longitudinal opening 31 to the enclosure 29 , 30 . the supporting element 32 , 33 delimits the gap 24 . in the embodiment of the line holder 20 illustrated in fig3 to fig5 the flexibility of the line clip 25 , 26 in the second position of the locking cap 27 is restricted in that the locking cap 27 limits or prevents a yielding of the supporting element 32 , 33 and hence prevents an increase in the size of the longitudinal opening 31 which would allow unclipping of a line . the embodiment in particular has the advantage that the retaining connection between the line clips 25 , 26 and any line clipped therein is securable by means of a locking element of an extremely simple design . in contrast , locking elements of a complex configuration , which are specially adapted to the respective enclosure for holding a line portion , are known from prior art , e . g . from de 38 02 698 . also of advantage is the special embodiment of the locking cap 27 and the wall 22 of the receiving space 21 . the wall 22 has a first 36 and a second 37 bead extending externally in a peripheral direction , the beads 36 , 37 being formed parallel to and spaced apart from one another . the first bead 36 is preferably disposed substantially at the top end of the wall 22 . in the first and second position of the locking cap 27 , the latter embraces the wall . the locking cap 27 has a first 38 and a second 39 groove so that in the first position the first bead 36 is latchable into the second groove 39 and in the second position the first bead 36 is latchable into the first groove 38 and the second bead 37 is latchable into the second groove 39 . in an alternative embodiment , the beads are formed on the locking cap and the grooves are formed in the wall . in yet another alternative embodiment , the locking cap does not embrace the wall but acts at least at two opposing points upon the outer periphery of the wall . a further feature of the special embodiment is the provision of a pin 14 which , in the second position of the locking cap 27 , is inserted as a clamping member in the top frontal sleeve opening 4 of the sleeve - like weld stud 1 and prevents a radial springing - together of the weld stud 1 at least in the top region . upon penetration of the pin 14 into the sleeve interior , the weld stud 1 is pressed radially apart with a simultaneous intensification of its resilient restoring forces so that the burr 7 presses into the longitudinal ribs 23 of the line holder 20 . the locking cap 27 therefore , besides the function of securing the retaining connection between the line clips 25 , 26 and the lines , also performs the function of securing the assembly connection between the line holder 20 and the weld stud 1 . the mounting of the locking cap 27 is reversible . the line holder 20 may be unscrewed from the weld stud 1 . in a further embodiment of a line holder which is not illustrated , the line holder is mountable by either of its two ends onto the fastening stud . in a special such embodiment , the line holder is fashioned in a similar manner to the line holder 20 so that it is mountable with one of the two opposing openings of its receiving space first onto the fastening stud . however , the material connections between the wall of the receiving space and the line clips is disposed further in the middle of the axial length of the wall so that the locking cap is mountable from both ends of the receiving space . the line clips are moreover designed in such a way that the longitudinal openings are easily accessible regardless of the selected mounting direction . fig6 to fig8 show a further embodiment of an assembly part according to the invention . the assembly part takes the form of a press button 10 , which is mountable onto the weld stud 1 and manufactured by injection moulding as an integral part made of plastic material . the weld stud 1 is welded to the body sheet 40 . two - dimensional materials in particular may be situated between the mushroom - like head 16 of the press button 10 and the body sheet 40 , said materials then being held fast by the press button 10 . the press button 10 has a receiving space 11 for receiving the weld stud 1 . from fig6 it is evident that the inner surface 18 of the receiving space 11 has a structure comprising a plurality of longitudinal ribs 13 . the wall 12 of the receiving space 11 has a circular cross section . formed at the top end of the receiving space 11 is a pin 14 which , when the press button 10 is mounted onto the weld stud 1 , presses into the top frontal sleeve opening 4 of the weld stud 1 . as a result , in the manner already described above , the radially outwardly acting forces are generated or intensified and lead to the thread burr 7 being pressed into the longitudinal ribs 13 . the pressing - in process continues for some time even after the end of the mounting process because the plastic material flows gradually under the pressure of the thread burr 7 . the top free end of the head 16 has a screwdriver slot 17 so that the press button 10 may be screwed onto , or unscrewed from , the weld stud 1 . the press button 10 has a through - opening 42 , which is formed substantially coaxially with the receiving space 11 . a clamping member 14 is disposed above the head 16 of the assembly part 10 . the clamping member 14 substantially takes the form of a pin . the external contour of the clamping member 14 substantially corresponds to the internal contour of the through - opening 42 . the clamping member 14 is connected by material connections 41 to the assembly part 10 . once the assembly part 10 is disposed on the fastening stud 1 , a force directed towards the fastening stud 1 is exerted upon the clamping member 14 , thereby destroying the material connections 41 . the clamping member 14 is introduced into the opening 4 of the fastening stud 1 . after the introduction process , the clamping member 14 has reached its end position , as shown in fig8 . fig9 shows an alternative construction of the clamping member 14 . the clamping member 14 has a head 43 , which projects into a correspondingly formed recess 44 of the mushroom - like head 16 . in another embodiment of a press button according to the invention which is not illustrated , the receiving space is designed in the manner of a through - channel so that the press button is mountable at either end onto the fastening stud . a clamping member is in said case either not provided or provided as a separate part . the embodiments of the assembly system according to the invention and of the assembly part according to the invention which are described with reference to the drawings demonstrate by way of example the advantages of the invention . other assembly parts of a known design may also be used in an assembly system according to the invention , it merely being necessary for the inner surface of the receiving space to be modified according to the invention . the assembly system according to the invention allows simple fastening of an assembly part to a fastening stud through mounting of the assembly part . by virtue of the fact that dimensionally stable material is pressed at points into plastically deformable material , a reliable connection is provided . the parts of the assembly system according to the invention may be manufactured by slightly modifying known techniques .	5
fig1 shows a schematic view of a system 20 for removing an unwanted chemical ( not shown ) from a working fluid ( not shown ) of another system 22 , according to an embodiment of the invention . the system 22 may be any system that uses a working fluid to reduce the amount of excess energy , such as heat , that the system 22 generates . the system 22 may also use a working fluid to convey energy , such as heat , and / or matter , such as a chemical , molecule and / or an arrangement of molecules , from one location in the system 22 to another location in the system . here , the system 22 is a cooling tower system that removes heat from another system such as a power generation system and releases the heat into the atmosphere . in this cooling tower system , water is the working fluid . in operation , the heat generated from the power station is transferred to the water of the cooling tower system 22 via the heat exchanger 24 . the water then carries the heat to the cooling tower 26 where the heat is released to the atmosphere via convection and removed from the water via evaporation . the remaining water then flows back to the heat exchanger 24 via a pump 28 to pick up more heat and perform the cycle again . a make - up water source 30 periodically adds water to the system 22 to replace the water that is lost from evaporation , and / or leaks in the system , such as that caused by wind that blows a portion of the water out of the cooling tower and improperly seated seals in the system &# 39 ; s piping components . the system 20 for removing an unwanted chemical from the working fluid of the system 22 includes a separation tank 32 ( discussed in greater detail in conjunction with fig2 and 3 ) in which the working fluid is received , mixed with a second chemical ( not show ) that reacts with the unwanted , first chemical to form one or more molecules ( also not shown ), and held for a period to separate the one or more molecules from the working fluid . the amount of the second chemical injected into the separation tank is the amount that provides or substantially provides a stoichiometric ratio relative to the amount of the unwanted , first chemical in the working fluid . the stoichiometric ratio is the ratio of the amount of the second chemical to the amount of the unwanted , first chemical such that when their reaction is completed the second chemical and the unwanted , first chemical are consumed . the duration of the period that the working fluid is held in the tank 32 may be any desired duration that allows enough time for the one or more molecules to be generated and separated from the working fluid . by providing the second chemical in an amount that provides or substantially provides a stoichiometric ratio relative to the amount of the unwanted , first chemical in the working fluid , and allowing at least four minutes for the second chemical to react with substantially all of the unwanted , first chemical , the working fluid leaves the separation tank substantially free of the unwanted , first chemical . although the system 20 may be used to remove an unwanted chemical from any working fluid , the embodiments of the system 20 shown in fig2 and 3 and discussed in conjunction with these figs . are designed for a system 22 that uses water as its working fluid , such as the cooling tower system 22 . still referring the fig1 , the system 20 includes a sensor 34 to obtain information about the water flowing toward the separation tank 32 , and another sensor 36 ( discussed in greater detail in conjunction with fig2 and 3 ) to obtain information about the water flowing through the tank . for example , in this and other embodiments of the system 20 , the sensor 34 includes four sensors 38 , 40 , 42 , and 44 . the sensor 38 includes a temperature transducer to sense the temperature of the water flowing toward the separation tank 32 . the sensor 40 includes a ph transducer to sense the ph of the water flowing toward the separation tank 32 . the sensor 42 includes a conductivity transducer to sense the electrical conductivity of the water flowing toward the separation tank 32 . and , the sensor 44 includes an oxidation reduction potential transducer to sense the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water flowing toward the separation tank 32 . the sensor 36 includes a pressure transducer to sense the pressure of the water flowing inside the separation tank 32 . other embodiments are possible . for example , the system 20 may include fewer or more sensors depending on the information needed to decide whether or not to modify the operation of one or more of the system components . this information substantially depends on the type of working fluid being cleaned and the type of unwanted chemical being removed from the fluid . the system 20 also includes a second chemical source 46 from which the second chemical is injected into the separation tank 32 through a valve 47 , a valve 48 to control the amount of water flowing through the system 20 , and a chelant source 50 from which a chelants — chelating agent or sequestering agent — may be added to the water before the water returns to the cooling tower system 22 . the second chemical is discussed in greater detail in conjunction with fig2 and 3 , and the chelant may be any desired chelant capable of binding with an unwanted , first chemical that exists in the water flowing through the cooling tower system 22 to hinder the unwanted , first chemical &# 39 ; s ability to react with other chemicals in the system 22 . for example , in this and other embodiments , the valve 48 may be a conventional flow control valve that allows infinite adjustment to the amount of water flowing through the system 20 . the chelant may be any natural or man - made carboxylated , or polycarboxylated agent or dispersant capable of stabilizing hardness and other matter in the system , and releasing hardness and suspended matter in the separation tank , when reacting with the second chemical . additionally , the chelant may include corrosion inhibitors to protect system components from damage . other embodiments are possible . for example , the system may include fewer or more components , such as a pump to increase the pressure in the flow , depending on the type of working fluid being cleaned and the type of unwanted chemical being removed from the fluid . still referring to fig1 , the system 20 may also include a controller 52 to monitor information from a sensor in the system 20 , such as the one or more sensors 36 - 44 , and / or a sensor in the cooling tower system 22 . the system 22 may include a flow meter 54 that provides the controller 52 information about the amount of water flowing through the system 22 , a temperature transducer 56 that provides the controller 52 information about the temperature of the water flowing through the system 22 , and a flow meter 58 that provides the controller 52 information about the amount of water being added to the system 22 from the make - up water source 30 . the controller 52 may then , in response to the information received , instruct one or more of the other components 46 - 50 of the system 20 to perform a function . for example , in this and other embodiments , the controller is a conventional proportional - integral - derivative ( pid ) programmable logic controller ( plc ) that uses ladder logic as its programming language to process the information received from one or more of the sensors 36 - 44 and 54 - 58 . in response to an increase in the amount of water added to the cooling tower system 22 , and thus an increase in the amount of cations in the system &# 39 ; s water , the controller 52 may determine whether or not the flow rate through the separation tank 32 is less than the maximum flow rate allowed to keep the water in the separation tank 32 for at last four minutes . if the flow rate is below this maximum , then the controller 52 may open the valve 48 to increase the flow through the system 20 , and increase the amount of second chemical injected into the separation tank to maintain the stoichiometric ratio . by doing this , the system 20 can continue to efficiently remove unwanted chemicals from the cooling tower system &# 39 ; s water . if the flow rate is at the maximum , then the controller 52 may alert a technician of the condition , who can then address the situation . by monitoring the conditions of the water flow through the cooling tower system 22 , and modifying the flow of the water through the system 20 , and the amounts of the second chemical and the chelant injected into the water , the controller 52 may tune the system 20 to efficiently remove an unwanted chemical from the water , and continually tune the system 20 in response to changes in the water conditions in the cooling tower system 22 and / or flow conditions in the system 20 . this may be beneficial when the system 20 is initially used to remove an unwanted chemical from the water because the system may be initially tuned to quickly remove a large amount of the unwanted chemical from the water , and then re - tuned as the concentration of the unwanted chemical reduces . this may also be beneficial when the system 20 is used to maintain a consistent removal of an unwanted chemical from the water because the system can fine tune itself in response to small changes in the flow conditions in the cooling tower system 22 and / or flow conditions in the system 20 . in such a steady - state situation , the amount of working fluid that flows through the separation tank may be as low as 0 . 5 % of the total flow of the working fluid through the fluid &# 39 ; s system . other embodiments are possible . for example , the controller 52 may include a computer such as a conventional desktop or laptop computer having a windows , or osx operating system , and executing a programmable language other than ladder logic . or , the system may not include a controller 52 , but instead be manually tuned by a technician . fig2 is a partial cross - sectional view of the separation tank 32 shown in fig1 , according to an embodiment of the invention . the tank 32 includes an inlet 60 through which the water and the second chemical enter the tank 32 , a first portion 62 where the water and the second chemical are received and substantially mix to generate the molecule ( 64 in fig3 ), a second portion 66 that holds the water while the molecule 64 is separated from it , and an outlet 68 through which clarified water is expelled from the tank 32 . the flow rate of the water through the tank 32 and the size of the first and second portions 62 and 66 , respectively , are coordinated to make the water take at least four minutes to flow through the tank 32 . the size and shape of the first and second portions 62 and 66 , respectively , may be any desired size and shape that together retain the water inside the tank for at least four minutes . for example , in this and other embodiments , the first portion 62 of the tank 32 includes an inverted , truncated cone , the second portion 66 includes a cylinder , and the water takes about ten minutes to flow through the tank 32 . the base of the inverted , truncated cone matches an end of the cylinder such that the cone and cylinder together form the tank 32 having a longitudinal axis 70 that is aligned with the cone &# 39 ; s longitudinal axis and the cylinder &# 39 ; s longitudinal axis . furthermore , in this and other embodiments , the tank 32 is disposed such that the inverted , truncated cone is below the cylinder relative to the direction of gravity &# 39 ; s pull . by orienting the tank 32 in this way , the water and the second chemical enter at the tank &# 39 ; s bottom and percolate through the first portion 62 of the tank 32 . the water then flows up toward the outlet 68 , while gravity pulls any of the molecules 64 that remain suspended in the water to separate the suspended molecules from the water before the water leaves the tank 32 through the outlet 68 . still referring to fig2 , the inlet 60 through which the water and the second chemical enter the tank 32 , may be configured as desired to promote mixing of the water and the second chemical . for example , in this and other embodiments , the inlet 60 is located at the bottom of the tank &# 39 ; s first portion 62 and is oriented such that the water and the second chemical flow toward the bottom of the tank 32 as they enter the tank . the water flows through the tube 72 whose exit forms the inlet 60 , and the second chemical flows through the tube 74 whose exit is concentric and coplanar with the exit of the tube 72 . in addition , the tube 74 is moveable relative to the tube 72 along the tank &# 39 ; s longitudinal axis 70 in the direction of the arrows 76 to allow the location of the exit of the tube 74 to be adjusted relative to the location of the exit of the tube 72 . in this manner , the location of the second chemical &# 39 ; s entrance into the tank 32 can be modified relative to the location of the water &# 39 ; s entrance into the tank 32 and within the first portion of the tank 32 , to promote the mixing of the water and the second chemical . to keep the exit of the tube 74 from fouling , a check valve 80 covers the exit of the tube 74 . the valve 80 may be any desired check valve that seals the exit of tube 74 when the second chemical is not injected into the tank 32 . for example , in this and other embodiments , the valve 80 includes two opposing flaps 82 and 84 that are very similar to a duck &# 39 ; s bill . the pressure of the water passing through the exit of the tube 72 and the pressure of the water inside the tank 32 urge the two flaps 82 and 84 together . when together in this manner , the two flaps 82 and 84 seal the exit of the tube 74 to prevent water from entering the tube 74 . to open the check valve 80 the second chemical inside the tube is urged to flow out of the tube 74 through the tube &# 39 ; s exit . when the second chemical reaches the two flaps 82 and 84 , the second chemical urges the flaps 82 and 84 to spread apart , and thus allow the second chemical to enter the tank 32 . still referring to fig2 , the second chemical may be any desired caustic or alkaline donor that will react with the unwanted chemical in the water to form a molecule that will precipitate out of the water . for example , in this and other embodiments , the second chemical includes sodium or potassium hydroxide . this reacts well with most scale inhibitors . in other embodiments , the second chemical may include a mixture of caustics or alkaline donors that best suit the water being treated . to control the flow of the second chemical through the tube 74 and into the tank 32 , the system 20 may include any desired valve capable of performing this task . for example , in this and other embodiments , the valve that controls the flow of the second chemical into the tank is the valve 47 ( in fig1 ), which is an electric flow control valve . to control the flow of water through the tube 72 and into the tank 32 , the system 20 may include any desired valve capable of performing this task . for example , in this and other embodiments , the valve that controls the flow of the water into the tank is the valve 48 ( in fig1 ), which is also an electric flow control valve . still referring to fig2 , the system 20 includes a valve 86 to purge from the tank 32 the one or more molecules that precipitate out of and are separated from the water in the tank 32 . the valve 86 may be any desired valve that when opened allows the one or more molecules to flow out of the tank 32 , and when closed does not allow water to leave the tank 32 through it . for example , in this and other embodiments , the valve 86 includes five valves 86 a , 86 b , 86 c , 86 d and 86 e , each controlling the flow of one or more molecules from a respective one of five regions within the tank &# 39 ; s first portion 62 . as discussed in greater detail in conjunction with fig3 , each of these valves 86 a - 86 e may be independently opened and closed to control the accumulation of one or more molecules in their corresponding regions within the first portion 62 . after the one or more molecules are purged from the tank 32 , the molecules are directed to an accumulation tank 88 where the volume of the accumulation tank is recorded each time it is filled and emptied for disposal . still referring to fig2 , the system 20 also includes a pressure transducer 36 to sense the water pressure in the tank 32 . the pressure transducer 36 may be any desired transducer capable of sensing the water pressure . for example , in this and other embodiments , the pressure transducer 36 includes six transducers 36 a , 36 b , 36 c , 36 d , 36 e , and 36 f ( discussed in greater detail in conjunction with fig3 ), each sensing the water pressure at a respective one of six regions within the tank 32 . each of these transducers 36 a - 36 f is coupled to a respective one of six tubes 90 a - 90 f that extend into the water flowing through the tank 32 . each of the tubes 90 a - 90 f are disposed at a unique location along the tank &# 39 ; s wall , and each are moveable toward and away from the longitudinal axis 70 to allow the respective pressure transducer to sense the water pressure at any desired location along the radius of the tank 32 . to keep the tubes 90 a - 90 f clear and thus allow each of the transducers 36 a - 36 f to accurately sense the water pressure in the tank 32 , clean water is periodically urged through each of the pipes 90 a - 90 f from the pipe 91 into the tank 32 . still referring to fig2 , the system 20 also includes a flow diverter 92 to direct the combined flow of the second chemical and the water away from the longitudinal axis 70 . by directing the combined flow away from the axis 70 as the flow passes through the first portion 62 of the tank 32 and enters the second portion 66 , the combined flow through each of the portions 62 and 66 becomes more uniform and more consistent , and thus less likely to concentrate into a path within each portion that provides the least resistance . the flow diverter 92 may be any desired device capable of directing the flow in this manner and withstanding the corrosive environment inside the tank 32 . for example , in this and other embodiments , the flow diverter 92 includes an inverted , truncated cone whose surface 94 is smooth and parallel with the inside surface of the tank &# 39 ; s first portion 62 . because the surface 94 is parallel to the inside surface of the first portion 62 , the — flow as it proceeds through the first portion 62 curls upward in a constant cross - sectional manner , and thus the flow through the second portion 66 remains substantially uniform and consistent . the flow diverter 92 also includes a spherical end 96 to help reduce eddys that might occur as the water flows past the diverter 92 . such eddys can cause a portion of the water flow to stagnate and not exit the tank 32 . in addition , the flow diverter 92 is moveable along the longitudinal axis 70 in the direction indicated by the arrows 98 . this allows one to increase or decrease the cross - sectional area of the flow entering the second portion 66 , improving molecule settling as the — water enters and flows through the second portion 66 . moving the flow diverter 92 toward the tank &# 39 ; s outlet 68 increases the cross - sectional area of the flow entering the second portion 66 , and moving the flow diverter 92 toward the inlet 60 decreases the cross - sectional area of the flow entering the second portion 66 . fig3 is a schematic view of the separation tank 32 in fig2 showing the flow of the water through the tank 32 , according to an embodiment of the invention . as the molecules 64 precipitate out of the water in the tank 32 , the molecules 64 aggregate in the first portion 62 and form a bed 100 of molecules 64 that hinders the flow of subsequent water through the tank 32 . by hindering the flow in this manner , the bed 100 acts like a filter that promotes mixing of the second chemical with the water as they flow through the first portion 62 , and traps molecules 64 formed and forming in the water as the water flows through the first portion 62 . between the bed 100 and the water in the second portion 66 of the tank lies an interface 102 between the two . if the interface 102 is too far into the second portion 66 of the tank 32 , the bed 100 of molecules 64 may plug the tank 32 and stop the flow of water through the tank 32 , or may escape the tank 32 through the outlet 68 . if the interface 102 is not far enough into the first portion 62 of the tank 32 , the water may flow too quickly through the tank 32 and allow some of the molecules 64 and / or unwanted chemical to escape the tank 32 through the outlet 68 . to control the location of the interface 102 between the bed 100 of molecules 64 and the water flowing through the second portion 66 of the tank 32 , the controller 52 ( in fig1 ) monitors the pressure sensed by each of the pressure transducers 36 a - 36 f ( in fig2 ), and in response to the pressures sensed , opens one or more of the valves 86 a - 86 e to purge one or more molecules 64 from one or more locations in the bed 100 . because the water continually flows through the tank 32 , and because the flow of water through the bed 100 is hindered , the water pressure of the flow in the bed 100 is greater than the water pressure of the flow in the second portion . thus , as shown in fig3 the water pressure sensed by the pressure transducers 36 e and 36 f ( fig2 ) are less than the water pressure sensed by the pressure transducers 36 a - 36 d ( fig2 ). the change in the water pressure between the transducers 36 d and 36 e indicates that the interface 102 lies between the location of the respective tubes 90 d and 90 e . because this location of the interface 102 is desired for this tank 32 and this working fluid ( water ), the controller 52 keeps each of the valves 86 a - 86 e ( fig2 ) closed . if , however , the controller 52 sees that the pressures sensed by each of the pressure transducers 36 a - 36 f are the same or substantially the same , then the controller 52 determines that the interface 102 is too far into the second portion 66 of the tank 32 . because this location of the interface 102 is not desired for this tank 32 and this working fluid ( water ), the controller 52 opens the valve 86 e and purges one or more of the molecules from this location in the bed 100 until the controller sees that the water pressure sensed by the pressure transducers 36 e and 36 f are the same and less than the water pressure sensed by the pressure transducers 36 a - 36 d . to purge molecules from the bed quicker , the controller 52 may open one or more of the valves 86 a - 86 d . other embodiments are possible . for example , the controller 52 may monitor , over time , the pressure sensed by one or more of the pressure transducers 36 a - 36 f . then , in response to a change in the pressure sensed over time by one of the pressure transducers , the controller 52 may open one or more of the valves 86 a - 86 e to purge one or more molecules 64 from one or more locations in the bed 100 . the preceding discussion is presented to enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the invention . various modifications to the embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art , and the generic principles herein may be applied to other embodiments and applications . thus , the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown , but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and features disclosed herein .	2
fig1 and 2 provide a structural overview of a magazine movement system 100 according to a first preferred embodiment of the invention in which the magazine assembly is a traveling assembly , the picker assembly is a normally stationary assembly , and the autochanger is of the linear variety . a magazine assembly 102 includes a linear array of media slots 104 . each media slot 104 may be used to contain one media unit . in the illustrated embodiment , each of slots 104 is configured to receive one tape cartridge . in other embodiments , slots 104 may be configured to receive media units of a type other than tape cartridges . magazine 102 is removably mounted to a car 106 . car 106 is retained in a track 108 . track 108 is defines a linear path of movement for car 106 . in the embodiment shown , motion reversal assembly 110 is mounted to the bottom of track 108 and includes a lever 112 having an axis of rotation 200 . lever 112 has a slot 203 coupled to magazine assembly 102 via a pin 204 on the underside of car 106 as shown . ( other suitable coupling methods may also be used .) lever 112 has a surface 114 that extends away from track 108 into the excursion path of a moving picker assembly . further details about motion reversal assembly 110 , including various alternative embodiments thereof , will be provided below . magazine assembly 102 is biased toward the rest position illustrated in fig1 and 2 . in the embodiment shown , this biasing is accomplished with a torsion spring 206 . specifically , leg 208 of torsion spring 206 is retained by a notch in bearing surface 210 on the underside of track 108 , and leg 212 of torsion spring 206 is retained under a lip 214 on lever 112 . this arrangement urges lever 112 toward the clockwise direction ( viewed from beneath , as in fig1 ), which in turn urges magazine assembly 102 toward the rest position illustrated in fig1 and 2 . other techniques may be used to bias magazine assembly 102 toward the rest position . further movement of magazine assembly 102 by torsion spring 206 beyond the rest position is prevented by the engagement of pin 204 with the end of track slot 216 and by the engagement of car tab 218 with the end of track slot 220 . during the movement of car 106 within track 108 , car tabs 218 , 222 travel within track slots 216 , 220 to aid alignment of car 106 within track 108 . the preferred operation of magazine movement system 100 will now be described with reference to fig3 and 4 . in fig3 and 4 , magazine movement system 100 is shown adjacent to a traveling picker assembly 300 . picker assembly 300 has an excursion path 302 that includes an end portion 304 . surface 114 of lever 112 is disposed within end portion 304 of excursion path 302 . in fig3 magazine assembly 102 is shown in its rest position . when picker assembly 300 is caused to travel in direction a and to enter end portion 304 of excursion path 302 , picker assembly 300 engages surface 114 of lever 112 . this moves lever 112 in the clockwise direction ( viewed from the top as in fig3 ), which in turn moves magazine assembly 102 away from the rest position toward direction b . direction b is opposite to the direction of movement of picker assembly 300 . moving magazine assembly 102 and picker assembly 300 in opposite directions simultaneously reduces the excursion distance required for picker assembly 300 to reach the end - most slot in magazine assembly 102 . for example , in the embodiment shown , the slot numbered “ 1 ” in magazine assembly 102 would be inaccessible by picker assembly 300 if it were not for magazine movement system 100 . preferably , an automatic control system should be provided and calibrated such that picker assembly 300 will stop its movement in direction a when it is aligned with the media slot numbered “ 1 ” as shown in fig4 . the implementation of such a control system will not be described herein ; its details are beyond the scope of the invention , and persons of ordinary skill in the art will be able to utilize well - known techniques to construct it suitably without undue experimentation . it will suffice to note herein that the travel distance required for picker assembly 300 to move between adjacent media slots is larger when magazine assembly 102 is in the rest position , and smaller when magazine assembly 102 is moving away from the rest position in direction b . any control system chosen for operating picker assembly 300 must take this difference into account . when picker assembly 300 is caused to travel back away from end portion 304 toward direction b , torsion spring 206 moves magazine assembly 102 toward direction a , returning it to its rest position as soon as picker assembly 300 disengages from lever 112 . further structural details of magazine movement system 100 will now be described with reference to fig5 - 16 . fig5 illustrates an optional implementation of magazine assembly 102 in which magazine 103 is removable from car 106 . in fig5 magazine 103 has been removed from car 106 by depressing spring - loaded magazine lock 500 and sliding magazine 103 away from car 106 along the line indicated by arrow 502 . magazine 103 is mounted to car 106 by sliding it along line 502 so that lips 506 pass underneath retaining guides 504 . as sliding continues , a beveled surface ( not shown ) on the underside of magazine 103 depresses lock 500 . finally , lock 500 snaps into a locked position within lock retainer area 508 on the back side of magazine 103 . ( see fig3 and 4 .) fig6 - 9 illustrate car 106 and track 108 in more detail . magazine lock 500 may be installed onto car 106 by inserting axles 610 through clearance slots 612 and then pushing them backwards until they snap into axle retainers 614 . a compression spring 608 is placed between lock 500 and car 106 and is retained by recess 616 on car 106 and by recess 618 on the underside of lock 500 . installation is completed by rotating lock 500 down on spring 608 until tabs 620 ( one on either side of lock 500 ) snap into clearance holes 622 formed in car 106 . the material of track 108 defines a first wheel guide 600 along one side . ( in the embodiment shown , track 108 and wheel guide 600 were fashioned from a single piece of sheet metal .) a second wheel guide 700 may be fashioned within elongate member 602 . ( in the embodiment shown , elongate member 602 was made of plastic .) after wheels 606 and 607 are snapped onto car 106 as shown , car 106 may be placed onto track 108 . wheels 607 should be retained within wheel guide 600 ; pin 204 should extend downward through track slot 216 ; and car tabs 218 and 222 should be disposed within track slots 220 and 216 , respectively . elongate member 602 should be mounted onto track 108 so that it retains wheels 606 . ( in the embodiment shown , elongate member 602 was mounted to track 108 by inserting mounting tabs 702 , 704 into slots 602 , 604 . other suitable attachment methods may , of course , be used .) motion reversal assembly 110 will now be discussed in detail with reference to fig1 - 11 . in the embodiment shown , a single lever 112 is used to implement motion reversal assembly 110 . lever 112 and torsion spring 206 may be rotatably mounted to the underside of track 108 by any suitable means ; for example , with a bolt . cylindrical member 624 is disposed around axis of rotation 200 and fits inside torsion spring 206 . surface 114 should be disposed to engage picker assembly 300 , and slot 203 should provide a sliding point of engagement between lever 112 and pin 204 . in the embodiment shown , surface 114 and slot 203 are angularly displaced from one another by approximately 180 degrees relative to axis of rotation 200 . the radii extending from axis of rotation 200 to surface 114 and slot 203 were chosen to be approximately equal . this arrangement provided the desired reversal of motion between picker and magazine in substantially a 1 : 1 ratio . other radii and angular displacements may be chosen to achieve alternative ratios . it is believed , however , that in all embodiments that employ a single lever 112 to implement motion reversal assembly 110 , best results will be obtained when surface 114 is angularly displaced from slot 203 by not more than 270 degrees and not less than 90 degrees , as indicated in fig1 . other means may be used to implement motion reversal assembly 110 depending on the geometry of the magazine and picker assemblies in a given media autochanger . for example , instead of using a single lever , multiple levers , gears , motors or solenoids may be used to accomplish the task of moving the normally stationary assembly in the opposite direction of the traveling assembly when the traveling assembly enters an end portion of its excursion path . it is believed , however , that the single lever implementation will yield desirable cost savings over the alternative means just described . fig1 schematically summarizes the embodiment shown in fig1 - 11 . a normally stationary magazine assembly 1200 is retained on a linear track 1202 . a traveling picker assembly 1204 moves along an excursion path 1206 adjacent to magazine assembly 1200 to access media units mounted in magazine assembly 1200 . when picker assembly 1204 travels to a point near the end of excursion path 1206 , it engages motion reversal assembly 1208 , which causes magazine 1200 to move in direction 1210 opposite to the direction of the picker assembly &# 39 ; s movement . the result is to enable picker assembly 1204 to access one or more media slots in magazine assembly 1200 that would otherwise have been located in the picker assembly &# 39 ; s dead space . several alternative embodiments of the invention will now be discussed schematically with reference to fig1 - 15 . in the embodiment of fig1 , a normally stationary picker assembly 1304 is retained on a linear track 1302 . a traveling magazine assembly 1300 moves along an excursion path 1306 adjacent to picker assembly 1304 so that picker assembly 1304 may access media units mounted in magazine assembly 1300 . when magazine assembly 1300 travels to a point near the end of excursion path 1306 , point 1301 engages motion reversal assembly 1308 , which causes picker assembly 1304 to move in direction 1310 opposite to the direction of the magazine assembly &# 39 ; s movement . the result is to enable picker assembly 1304 to access one or more media slots in magazine assembly 1300 that would otherwise have been located in dead space . in the embodiment of fig1 , a normally stationary magazine assembly 1400 is retained on a curved track 1402 . a traveling picker assembly 1404 moves along an excursion path 1406 adjacent to magazine assembly 1400 to access media units mounted in magazine assembly 1400 . when picker assembly 1404 travels to a point near the end of excursion path 1406 , it engages motion reversal assembly 1408 , which causes magazine assembly 1400 to move in direction 1410 opposite to the direction of the picker assembly &# 39 ; s movement . the result is to enable picker assembly 1404 to access one or more media slots in magazine assembly 1400 that would otherwise have been located in the picker assembly &# 39 ; s dead space . in the embodiment of fig1 , a normally stationary picker assembly 1504 is retained on a curved track 1502 . a traveling magazine assembly 1500 moves along an excursion path 1506 adjacent to picker assembly 1504 so that picker assembly 1504 may access media units mounted in magazine assembly 1500 . when magazine assembly 1500 travels to a point near the end of excursion path 1506 , point 1501 engages motion reversal assembly 1508 , which causes picker assembly 1504 to move in direction 1510 opposite to the direction of the magazine assembly &# 39 ; s movement . the result is to enable picker assembly 1504 to access one or more media slots in magazine assembly 1500 that would otherwise have been located in dead space . while the invention has been described in detail in relation to preferred embodiments thereof , the described embodiments have been presented by way of example and not by way of limitation . it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made in the form , details , materials and fastening techniques described above without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims . for example , the “ tracks ” described above may be implemented in any manner suitable for defining a linear or arcuate path of movement for the picker or magazine assemblies ; it is believed that gear assemblies or alternative types of guide channels may produce acceptable results . in addition , the term “ picker assembly ” is intended herein to include any type of assembly that is cooperatively operable with a magazine assembly to access media units stored therein . specifically , “ picker assembly ” is intended to include devices in which a read / write head is placed on or near the media units without withdrawing the media units from the magazine . the term “ picker assembly ” is also intended to include devices that remove media units from the magazine and place them in a drive .	6
referring now to fig1 and fig2 , a portable garment rack a is shown . the portable garment rack a includes an accessory shelf 1 , an upper hanger bar 2 , an intermediate hanger bar assembly 4 , an intermediate accessory shelf 5 , and a support assembly 3 . fig1 shows one manner in which hanging clothes 47 and / or shoe racks 48 may be placed on the upper hanger bar 2 or the intermediate hanger bar 4 . the support assembly 3 ( fig2 and fig3 ) in the present embodiment includes three leg assemblies 17 arranged as a tripod . each leg assembly includes an upper leg 10 and a lower leg 11 . the lower leg 11 has a spring loaded detent pin 37 that engages with a detent hole 38 in the upper leg 10 . in its extended position , the leg assembly 17 is held extended by the engagement of the spring loaded detent pin 37 with the detent pin opening 38 in each of the upper legs 10 . to collapse the support assembly 3 for storage or transportation , the spring loaded detent pin 37 is depressed until it is lower than the detent pin opening 38 and the lower leg 11 is telescoped into the upper leg 10 . while any detent pin may be used to restrict the telescoping of the extended legs , the detent pin 37 of the present embodiment includes a circumferential ridge that acts to engage with the edge of the lower leg 11 when the lower leg is extended . each of the three leg assemblies 17 are attached to the pivot 13 with a bolt 14 , a washer 15 , a lock washer 16 , and a nut 36 inserted into the leg mounting holes in the upper leg 10 and the pivot mounting openings 40 . additionally , each of the lower legs 11 of the three assemblies 17 includes a foot 12 installed onto the lower end of the lower leg 11 . each foot 12 is made from a product that will inhibit the portable garment rack a from marring a flooring surface upon which the portable garment rack a is resting . in an alternative embodiment of the present invention , the foot 12 can include a rolling element that allows the portable garment rack a to be rolled across a floor . in the present embodiment , the upper legs 10 and the lower legs 11 are made from a lightweight metal such as aluminum tubing . other materials such as steel , plastic , or wood may also be used provided the support assembly is made strong enough to support the expected weight and the overall weight of the portable garment rack a is not detrimental to the easy carrying and transport of the portable garment rack a . it will also be appreciated that while the embodiment shown herein uses three legs in a tripod arrangement , the number of legs used can be varied to meet the specific requirements of use for the portable storage rack a . for example , it may be necessary to use four legs to provide additional directional support for the portable storage rack a . the accessory shelf 1 comprises an upper plate 6 installed onto a vertical guide tube 8 with a flat head screw 7 . the flat head screw 7 is installed through upper plate opening 41 and into a captivated nut 9 ( fig6 ) that is installed into the inside diameter 42 of the vertical guide tube 8 such that the horizontal surface 43 of the captivated nut 9 is generally flush with the rim 44 of the vertical guide tube 8 . after the assembly of the accessory shelf 1 is complete , the accessory shelf 1 is installed into the opening 45 ( fig3 ) of the pivot 13 , with the vertical guide tube 8 sliding through the opening 45 until the upper plate comes to rest on the pivot 13 . the upper hanger bar 2 ( fig4 ) is attached to the upper plate 6 of the accessory shelf 1 with two mounting down straps 20 , two bolts 21 , two washers 22 , two lock washers 23 , and two nuts 24 . the upper hanger bar 2 includes a bar 18 and two covers 19 with the covers 19 mounted to each of the two ends of the bar 18 . the upper plate 6 has two mounting openings 46 for the installation of the two mounting straps 20 . while in the present embodiment the upper hanger bar 2 is installed such that the midpoint of the length of the upper hanger bar 2 is aligned with the centerline of the accessory plate 1 , the upper hanger bar 2 may be located at any position within the mounting straps 20 . the intermediate hanger bar 4 ( fig4 ) rests on two bar holders 27 mounted onto two of the leg assemblies 17 . the intermediate hanger bar 4 includes a bar 25 and two covers 26 , with each cover 26 located at one of the two ends of the bar 25 . each bar holder 27 is mounted onto the leg assembly 17 with a winged retainer 28 . by loosening and tightening the winged retainer 28 , the bar holders 27 may positioned at various heights on the leg assembly 17 . the bar holders 27 are located on each of the two leg assemblies 17 such that when the intermediate hanger bar 4 is resting on the two bar holders 27 , the two bar holders 27 are located between the covers 26 located at each end of the bar 25 . it will be appreciated that while this location is preferred in the present embodiment , the vertical location of the intermediate hanger bar 4 can be adjusted up or down as long as the intermediate hanger bar 4 can rest on the two bar holders 27 . the intermediate accessory shelf 5 ( fig4 ) includes a generally triangular - shaped flexible material 32 having one of three grommets 33 mounted near each apex of the triangular shape . the design of the intermediate accessory shelf 5 in the current embodiment also includes a concave area 49 near the center of the intermediate accessory shelf . this concave area 49 tends to allow any items placed on the intermediate accessory shelf 5 to move toward the center of the shelf thereby enhancing the ability of the shelf to hold the small items . each corner of the intermediate accessory shelf 5 is mounted to a leg assembly 17 with one of three straps 34 that has been inserted through the grommet 33 and around the outer circumference of the leg assembly 17 . the shape of the intermediate accessory shelf 5 is also generally concave , with the concave surface facing upward toward the pivot 13 . the concave nature of the intermediate accessory shelf 17 works to retain any objects placed upon it . once assembled , the portable garment rack a is capable of storing a wide variety of clothes and grooming supplies . the upper hanger bar 2 ( fig1 ) on the accessory shelf 1 can carry long clothes such as dinner dresses , formals , ties , and belts , and either simultaneously or alternatively , shoe holders can also be hung from the upper hanger bar . the accessory shelf 1 is large enough to hold large or small hats , boxes , makeup boxes , or mirrors . the design of the accessory shelf 1 is also strong enough to hold other items . the intermediate accessory shelf 5 is best used to store grooming supplies such as lipstick , brushes , combs , and earrings , as well as other loose items such as loose change . the intermediate hanger bar 4 is the primary hanging bar and is used for hanging shorter length items such as shirts and blouses , or suits with pants folded inside . when the portable garment rack a must be stored or transported , the intermediate hanger bar 4 ( fig5 ) and accessory shelf 1 are removed from the support assembly 3 without the need for any disassembly . each of the lower leg assemblies 11 is then telescoped into the associated upper leg 10 such that the leg assemblies 17 are as short as possible . the leg assemblies 17 are then brought together around the pivot 13 . the three straps 34 may be unsnapped and removed from the grommets 33 of the intermediate flexible shelf 5 to remove the flexible shelf 5 from the leg assemblies 17 , or the intermediate flexible shelf 5 may remain in position attached to the leg assemblies 17 . all of the components can then be placed into a carrying bag . while the above description describes various embodiments of the present invention , it will be clear that the present invention may be otherwise easily adapted to fit any configuration where a portable garment rack having the ability to collapse for transport is required . as various changes could be made in the above constructions without departing from the scope of the invention , it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense .	0
the following discussion describes in detail one embodiment of the invention ( and several variations of that embodiment ). this discussion should not be construed , however , as limiting the invention to those particular embodiments , practitioners skilled in the art will recognize numerous other embodiments as well . for definition of the complete scope of the invention , the reader is directed to appended claims . referring to fig1 , shown is an illustrative view of the cookware immersion device . the present invention is a cookware immersion device 10 used to submerge food items 12 within a liquid 14 in a cooking pot 16 . the device 10 comprises a plurality of expansion plates 18 , so that when positioned within the cooking pot 16 the plates 18 can be extended by turning a provided handle 20 until the plates 18 frictionally engage an inner wall 22 of the cooking pot 16 , thereby keeping the food items 12 submerged within the cooking fluid 14 . referring to fig2 a , shown is an illustrative view of the cookware immersion device positioned for use . for clarity of operation a number of expansion plates 18 , drive plate linkages 24 and associated fasteners 26 have been removed . in operation , the device 10 is positioned over the pot 16 where a user 28 desires to keep the food items 12 immersed in the liquid 14 , whether for marinating or cooking . the immersion device 10 has a plurality of overlapping petal - like expansion plates 18 that are driven outwardly through rotation of the drive plate post handle 20 . a drive plate post 30 is fixedly attached to a drive plate 32 that has a corresponding number of drive plate linkages 24 and expansion plates 18 . referring to fig2 b , shown is another illustrative view of the cookware immersion device positioned for use . as aforementioned , the device 10 is positioned over the pot 16 where the user 28 desires to keep the food items 12 immersed in the liquid 14 whether for marinating or cooking . clockwise rotation of the drive plate post handle 20 rotates the drive plate 32 and drive plate linkages 24 fastened thereto that are each fixedly attached to a respective expansion plate 18 . the vectored path of each respective linkage 24 is determined by a guide pin 34 fixedly attached to a base plate 35 then extending through a provided longitudinal slot 36 in the linkage 24 . as illustrated , the expansion plates 18 are partially extended to cover the food items 12 to be immersed , then inserted to keep the food items 12 below the top level of the liquid 14 . referring to fig2 c , shown is another illustrative view of the cookware immersion device in use . once the immersion device 10 has the required food items 12 submerged within the liquid 14 being either water , oil , broth , or stock for marinating or cooking . the drive plate post handle 20 is rotated until alignment nubs 38 of the expansion plates 18 engage the inner wall 22 of the cooking pot 16 . a leaf spring 40 of a latching mechanism 41 has a first fastened end 42 and a second free end 44 that slides over teeth of a gear 46 in clockwise rotation of the handle 20 with the second free end 44 of the leaf spring 40 because of its arcuate shape portion prevents counter clockwise rotation until pressure is placed on the arcuate shape portion that will dislodge the leaf spring 40 from the gear 46 , whereby counter clockwise rotation of the handle 20 will move the expansion plates 18 and drive plate linkages 24 by virtue of the guide pins 34 back to their stored position . referring to fig3 , shown is a perspective view of the cookware immersion device in the closed position . the immersion device 10 comprises the base plate 35 having base posts 50 and a bearing 52 supporting the drive plate post 30 having the handle 20 on one distal end of the drive plate 32 and a drive plate 32 , on the other end having linkage 24 for extending and retracting the expansion plates 18 through the handle 20 . the base plate 35 has a plurality of apertures 54 for liquid 14 to pass through while keeping the food items 12 submerged within the liquid 14 . one of the base posts 50 also has a hand grip 56 to help guide the device 10 into the cooking pot 16 . referring to fig4 , shown is a perspective view of the cookware immersion device in the open position . the immersion device 10 comprises the base plate 35 having base posts 50 and bearing 52 supporting the drive plate post 30 having the handle 20 on one distal end and a drive plate 32 on the other end with linkage 24 for extending and retracting the expansion plates 18 through rotation of the handle 20 . the latching mechanism 41 keeps the plates 18 in the desired extended position . to retract the plates 18 pressure is applied to the latching mechanism 41 which will disengage from the gear 46 allowing the handle 20 to be used to retract the plates 18 . referring to fig5 , shown is a bottom view of the cookware immersion device in the closed position . the drive plate post 30 is fastened to the drive plate 32 having a plurality of drive plate linkages 24 having one end pivotally attached to the drive plate 32 and fixedly attached on the other end to a respective expansion plate 18 , so that when the drive plate post 30 is rotated by the post handle 20 , the drive plate 32 rotates extending the expansion plates 18 outwardly . each of the drive plate linkages 24 has a longitudinal slot 36 with a guide pin 34 therein , that is fixedly attached to the base plate 35 constraining the expansion plate 18 in an outward extension . referring to fig6 , shown is a front view of the cookware immersion device . the device 10 comprises a plurality of expansion plates 18 linked to a drive plate 32 fixedly attached to the drive plate post 30 terminating in the handle 20 for rotating the drive plate 32 . also shown is the drive plate post 30 having the gear 46 and latching mechanism 41 fastened to a base post 50 extending from the base plate 35 having guide pins 34 extending through a respective drive plate linkage 24 that is pivotally attached to the drive plate 32 on one end and fixedly attached to a respective expansion plate 18 , so that rotation of the drive plate post 30 drives the expansion plate 18 outwardly along the linkage guide pin slot 36 . referring to fig7 , shown is a bottom view of the cookware immersion device in the open position . the drive plate post 30 fastened to the drive plate 32 drives a plurality of drive plate linkages 24 having one end pivotally attached to the drive plate 32 and the other fixedly attached to a respective expansion plate 18 , so that when the drive plate post 30 is rotated by the post handle 20 , the drive plate 32 rotates extending the expansion plates 18 outwardly . each of the drive plate linkages 24 has a longitudinal slot 36 with a guide pin 34 therein that is fixedly attached to the base plate 35 constraining the expansion plate 18 in an outward extension . referring to fig8 , shown is a bottom view of the cookware immersion device having four deployable expansion plates . the drive plate post 30 is fastened to the drive plate 32 having a plurality of drive plate linkages 24 having one end pivotally attached to the drive plate 32 and fixedly attached on the other end to a respective expansion plate 18 , so that when the drive plate post 30 is rotated by the post handle 20 , the drive plate 32 rotates extending the expansion plates 18 outwardly . each of the drive plate linkages 24 has a longitudinal slot 36 with a guide pin 34 therein that is fixedly attached to the base plate 35 constraining the expansion plate 18 in an outward extension . referring to fig9 , shown is a bottom view of the cookware immersion device having four expansion plates deployed . the drive plate post 30 fastened to the drive plate 32 drives a plurality of drive plate linkages 34 having one end pivotally attached to the drive plate 32 and the other end fixedly attached to a respective expansion plate 18 so that when the drive plate post 30 is rotated by the post handle 20 , the drive plate 32 rotates extending the expansion plates 18 outwardly . each of the drive plate linkages 24 has a longitudinal slot 36 with a guide pin 34 therein that is fixedly attached to the base plate 34 constraining the expansion plate 18 in an outward extension . it will be understood that each of the elements described above , or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above . while certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claims , it is not intended to be limited to the details above , since it will be understood that various omissions , modifications , substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention . without further analysis , the foregoing will so fully reveal the gist of the present invention that others can , by applying current knowledge , readily adapt it for various applications without omitting features that , from the standpoint of prior art , fairly constitute essential characteristics of the generic or specific aspects of this invention .	0
as best shown in fig1 , a mattress expander 10 according to the present invention includes a top pad 12 that overlies a top surface t of a standard mattress m . standard mattresses in care - giving settings typically are 80 - 84 inches long , 36 inches wide , and 6 inches in height . these dimensions are examples and should not be considered limiting . top pad 12 is wider than the standard mattress m , i . e . greater than 36 inches wide , and therefore provides a wider supporting surface or top surface 14 . top surface 14 is a constant surface free from seams , folds , or other joints that could create discomfort or lead to decubitus sores . the length of top pad 12 is sized to be the same as or close to the length of the mattress m that is being expanded so that the mattress expander 10 fits between the headboard and footboard of the bed to which the mattress expander 10 is applied . it will be appreciated that greater length could be provided by mattress expander 10 by extending its length . top pad 12 may be constructed of foam , as shown , or other suitable padding material including natural fiber , open or closed cell foam , synthetic fiber , air or other fluid containing bladders , among others . as shown , top pad 12 may have a constant thickness . as shown , top pad 12 may be a monolithic member . in the example shown , top pad 12 has an uninterrupted lower surface 15 that extends laterally outward of the mattress m to form overhanging portions indicated at 18 . a pair of side members 16 are attached to top pad 12 as described in more detail below . side members 16 lie below overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 that extend laterally outward of mattress m . side members 16 have a height similar to that of standard mattress m and may extend below the lower surface l of mattress m , as necessary . side members 16 generally have the same lateral dimension as the overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 , and extend longitudinally to the same extent as top pad 12 . it will be appreciated , however , that side members 16 do not have to have the same length and width as the top pad 12 and do not have to have the same width as overhanging portions 18 . for example , the lateral and longitudinal dimensions of side members 16 may be smaller or larger than overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 . the material used to construct the side members 16 may be selected from the same types of padding materials used to construct top pad 12 , but may not necessarily be the same material as top pad 12 . for example , to provide additional support under overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 , a more dense material may be used to construct side members 16 . while , in the example shown , side members 16 are separate from top pad 12 , the top pad 12 and side members 16 may be constructed as a unitary member or monolithic member . as shown , side members 16 extend downward relative to top pad 12 and are laterally spaced from each other to define a mattress receiving channel 20 between the interior surfaces 24 of each side member 16 . the channel 20 has lateral and longitudinal dimensions that conform closely to a standard mattress m . in the example shown , channel 20 has a width of about 36 inches . channel 20 may be slightly smaller than the width of the mattress m to create an interference fit between the side members 16 and mattress m . in the example shown , side members 16 are held against the mattress m and under overhanging portions 18 by a flap that may be tucked beneath the mattress m on either side . as described more completely below , opposing flaps or a single flap may be used to connect side members 16 to each other . as best shown in fig3 - 8 , a cover 30 fits over top pad 12 and side members 16 and may be used to attach top pad 12 and side members 16 to mattress m , as discussed more below . as best shown in fig3 , cover 30 may have a seamless top surface 31 that overlies top pad 12 such that the expanded top surface of mattress expander 10 has no seams . as best shown in fig7 , cover 30 may encompass top pad 12 and side members 16 individually such that each pad is housed within its own covering . alternatively , a single cover may house all of the pads . as shown in fig7 , cover 30 may be used to attach top member 12 to side members 16 . in particular , cover 30 may include a top portion 34 that envelopes the top pad 12 and side portions 32 ( one shown ) that extend downward from the top portion 34 of cover 30 . the side portions 32 may be sewn to or otherwise attached to the side 35 of top portion 34 of cover 30 . in the embodiment shown , side portions 32 extend downward from the underside of top portion 34 of cover 30 surrounding top pad 12 forming a hinge - like connection 33 between top pad 12 and side members 16 . this hinge - like connection 33 may facilitate positioning of mattress expander 10 in relation to mattress m . as best shown in fig3 , since the standard bed frame f is only the width of the standard mattress m , side members 16 may be unsupported . to that end , side members 12 may be attached to each other or secured by a flap that extends under the mattress such that the weight of the mattress m holds the side members 12 in place . to that end , a mattress flap 36 may be operatively attached to one or more side members 12 and tuckable beneath mattress m . alternatively , the mattress flap 36 may extend from one side member and attach to another portion of mattress expander 10 , for example , an opposite side member 12 , to secure the side members beneath the overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 . in the example shown , since top pad 12 and side members 16 are housed within a cover , operative attachment of mattress flap 36 may be achieved by attaching a mattress flap 36 to a portion of the cover 30 . for example , with reference to fig4 - 6 , one or more mattress flaps 36 may extend inward from one or more of side portions 32 of cover 30 to extend beneath mattress m . in the embodiment shown in fig4 , a pair of mattress flaps 36 extends inward from opposite side portions 32 of cover 30 and attach to each other beneath mattress m . mattress flap 36 may be any member that can be tucked or otherwise extended under the mattress m to help secure the mattress expander 10 . the mattress flaps 36 do not need to attach to each other and may rely on the weight of the mattress m to secure mattress expander 10 . as depicted , to provide further security , first and second mattress flaps 36 may attach to each other , another portion of mattress expander 10 to cover 30 . to that end mattress flaps 36 may include members that attach to each other such as belts , ties , straps , or include a fastener to attach the members together . attachment of mattress flaps 36 to each other may be accomplished with any fastener 38 including but not limited to ties , buckles , toggles , snaps , clips , d - loops , buttons and hook and loop fasteners . for example , hook and loop fastener strips attached to the respective mattress flaps 36 may be used as shown in the depicted embodiment . as shown in fig5 , mating hook and loop fastener strips 38 a , 38 b are provided on flaps 36 and are located to overlap each other when the mattress flaps 36 are extended beneath a mattress m . to account for variations on mattress m , strips 38 a , 38 b may have an appreciable width . for example , a width greater than 1 cm may be used . the strips 38 a , 38 b shown have a width of approximately 5 - 10 cm . mattress flaps 36 may be located anywhere along the length of mattress expander 10 and multiple flaps 36 may be used . it will be appreciated that a single flap 36 extending between side members 16 may be used to secure mattress expander 10 or opposing flap pairs , as shown , may be used . in the example shown in fig4 , a first pair of mattress flaps 36 a are located centrally along the longitudinal axis of mattress expander 10 . a second pair of mattress flaps 36 b are located at one end of mattress expander 10 , and a third pair of mattress flaps 36 c are located at the opposite end of mattress expander 10 . each mattress flaps may have a different shape or construction . in the example shown , each pair of mattress flaps has a similar shape and construction , and therefore the description of the mattress flaps 36 will apply generically to each of the mattress flap pairs 36 a , 36 b , 36 c . differences between the individual pairs will be noted . the mattress flaps 36 may have any width that facilitates attachment to secure mattress expander 10 such that side members 16 are held in a supporting relationship to overhanging portions 18 . in terms of longitudinal dimension , mattress flaps 36 may have any dimension . in the example shown , the longitudinal dimension of mattress flaps 36 is greater than 10 cm , and may be about 30 cm . as shown in fig4 - 6 , cover 30 may further include end portions , generally indicated by the number 40 . end portions 40 generally include one or more end flaps 44 , that wrap around one of the ends e of mattress m to further secure mattress expander 10 . in the example shown , end portions 40 work with the second and third pairs of mattress flaps 36 b , 36 c that extend inward from the sides of the longitudinal ends of cover 30 ( fig4 - 6 ) to underlie a portion of the end e of mattress m . an end flap 44 extends downward from each end of cover 30 covering a longitudinal edge ( i . e ., the head or foot ) of mattress m . end flap 44 is fastened to flaps 36 , as by a hook and loop or other suitable fastener as discussed with respect to flaps 36 above . in the example shown in fig6 , lateral edges 48 of mattress flaps 36 are provided with hook and loop fasteners to attach the mattress flaps 36 to each other . longitudinal edges 50 of mattress flaps 42 have hook fasteners 52 on their outward facing surface that engage loop fasteners 54 provided on the inward facing surface 56 of end flap 44 . in this way mattress flaps 36 and end flap 44 join together to form a cap - like end portion 40 at end e of mattress m . in the embodiment shown , end portions 40 at either end of mattress expander 10 are constructed in the same manner , and therefore the same reference numbers are used to refer to the structures at the head portion 61 and foot portion 62 of mattress expander 10 ( fig3 and 4d ). cover 30 , mattress flaps 36 , and end portions 40 may be constructed of any natural or synthetic fiber . in the example shown , a fluid resistant or fluid proof material is used to protect the underlying foam and / or mattress m . as best shown in fig4 , when attached , cover 30 holds side members 16 against the outer walls of mattress m placing side members 16 in supporting relation to overhanging portions 18 of top pad 12 and securing mattress expander 10 to mattress m . in this configuration , top pad 12 provides a seamless supporting surface that is wider than the underlying mattress m . with the end portions 40 of cover 30 attached , mattress expander 10 encapsulates mattress m providing greater security and allowing cover 30 to fully protect mattress m from fluids . a new and useful mattress expander according to the concepts of the present invention has been shown and described herein . the above description describes various embodiments of the invention as examples and is not limiting . for an appreciation of the scope of the invention , reference should be made to the following claims .	0
the present invention utilizes a web - based loan origination and loan processing system and method specifically designed for use by mortgage industry professionals . the program and method utilize a website accessible to participating mortgage brokers and wholesale lenders throughout the country via a conventional web browser . the program is preferably password or “ key ” protected to generate revenue from , for example , monthly or yearly subscription sales . participating mortgage brokers who purchase a key may access an entire range of program features , including complete loan preparation and processing capabilities , pre - prepared loan processing forms , protection and permission setting capabilities for its clients &# 39 ; files , and other tools to assist them with all aspects of originating and processing mortgage loans . participating wholesale lenders have access to a lender database that allows the lenders to price or respond to loan proposals submitted by brokers into the database , and well as review past performance of previous bids . the program loaded on the website allows a mortgage broker to create an electronic loan file for each of the broker &# 39 ; s customers , and to consolidate and store all customer files in a centralized lender database , where they can be selectively made accessible to wholesale lenders nationwide . each broker creates his own separate database of client loan files , and the databases of all subscribing brokers may preferably reside on a single data server . a mortgage broker creates each separate customer loan file by providing information to the program in response to a series of dropdowns , textboxes and pop - up windows generated by the program . from the website , the broker has the ability to access his client &# 39 ; s loan files and check the status of the loan anytime or anywhere that internet access is available . once a loan file is complete , an email is sent to the customer notifying the customer of the completion of the loan application , and providing a link to the web site where the customer can log in and monitor the status of his or her particular loan application . the program allows the mortgage broker flexibility to control how much information and which documents each customer can access . the lender database is used by the mortgage broker to solicit feedback from potential wholesale lenders that will enable the broker to prepare loan proposals for his or her customers . as part of this process , the broker can select whether standardized or supplemental information about the customer &# 39 ; s file will be made available to participating wholesale lenders . the broker also chooses whether to make the data available to all subscribing lenders or to only certain lenders of the broker &# 39 ; s choice . a subscribing wholesale lender may use his key or password to access the lender database from his computer &# 39 ; s desktop or any other device with an operating web browser , and view a list of loan application files from various mortgage brokers giving that lender permission to view their clients &# 39 ; loan files . the lender can then view selected information and documents from the files of the broker &# 39 ; s clients , and provide feedback to the broker online via the internet in response to each client file in the database . responding lenders will have the ability to quote an interest rate , conditionally approve a loan proposal , suspend a loan response pending further inquiry , decline a loan proposal , or make a loan suggestion in response to the loan files they select . however , they will only be allowed to access those documents in the file that the broker specifically gives them permission to view . for example , the file may have a client credit report but the broker may not authorize all lenders to view the report . in this situation , only those lenders approved to access the client &# 39 ; s credit report will have access . the program also allows for multiple lenders to be able to view the same broker &# 39 ; s loan files at the same time . the present invention allows each mortgage broker to monitor the lenders &# 39 ; responses to their loan files online . the broker also controls the period in which lenders have to respond , and the expiration of the period set by the broker may foreclose any further responses by the lenders . the broker can set automatic parameters on the process , such as time limits on responding , instruct the program to close the opportunity for responding once a certain number of responses or a certain interest rate is received , or the broker can terminate the process manually if they no longer need further responses from lenders . in reply to a lender &# 39 ; s response , the broker can communicate a question or response back to the lender via the lender database using the program . lenders preferably can change or update their responses until the mortgage broker closes the process , either automatically or manually . once the process is closed , the broker reviews the lender responses , selects the lender and loan program of his choice for the customer , and prepares a loan proposal for the customer to review . once the customer accepts the proposal , the loan can be processed for final approval or funding . a novel feature of the present invention is that responding lenders are rated on how quick they respond as well as on their pricing . these lender ratings are then used to determine the order in which the responses are displayed on the broker &# 39 ; s screen . for example , the top ten lenders with the lowest interest rate quotes could be listed first in order of price . if multiple lenders quote the same rate for the loan , they will be listed in the order of their respective response time from quickest to slowest . if the lender &# 39 ; s response is not consistent with the mortgage broker &# 39 ; s request , it will be excluded from the listing . one purpose of the rating system is to create competition among wholesale lenders , who will not be allowed to see the quotes of other lenders . lenders who have previously quoted on files can download statistics on their own participation and success to assist them in improving their pricing and competitiveness . brokers can download statistics on the performance records of lenders regarding participation , relative quote levels , and final backing of initial quotes . in addition to receiving lender quotes , a broker also can use the system to upload his files for viewing , to complete and print standardized loan documents , to view status reports that track his loan applications through the approval process , and to create customized loan proposals for his customers from a personalized template . the program also provides for automated calendaring of daily task reminders and dates for upcoming task deadlines . further , the program can be used as an effective marketing tool to contact clients on present loan rates and other news of interest that can generate leads and additional business opportunities for the mortgage broker . with reference to fig1 , the present invention is directed to a web - based program that is accessible twenty - four hours a day from anywhere using a standard web browser . fig1 illustrates an exemplary welcome screen that appears after a log - in prompt . the welcome screen may act as a home page while navigating through the program . as further shown in fig1 , the exemplary welcome screen includes a pipeline report 10 , a current interest rate 20 section , a calendar 30 , and personal and company bulletins 25 a , b . the pipeline report 10 is the mortgage broker &# 39 ; s quick status view of all pending loans . when a new loan file is created , it automatically shows up on the pipeline report 10 . also , when a loan closes , that file is deleted from the pipeline report . the status report includes a line entry for a date the file was opened 15 , the type of loan file 16 , the status of the loan 17 , the name of the client 18 , a loan amount and type 19 , and the name of the processor 21 . the pipeline report 10 allows the broker to quickly view all of the pending files and quickly see the status of each loan upon logging into the program . by clicking on the individual loans 23 , additional information on the loans pop up that enables the broker to see the full loan application and the related documents in a quick and efficient manner . the current interest rate 20 value is set by the broker as a convenience to avoid having to locate and refer to a quote sheet all day while processing new loan customers . the broker will typically select the best rate of the day from one of its wholesale lenders and then input the value into the today &# 39 ; s rate location 20 in the upper right hand corner of the welcome screen when signing on in the morning . the mortgage broker can then continuously refer to the rate quickly without any further searching throughout the day . the current interest rate 20 can also trigger a marketing feature whereby existing customers are sent a message if the current interest rate set above is less by a predetermined threshold value from the customer &# 39 ; s existing interest rate , as discussed more fully below . the calendar 30 is used to keep the mortgage broker updated on appointments , tasks , deadlines , meetings , and upcoming events . data can be entered into the calendar and accessed by using a pointer to click on the specific day . any events or appointments of that day will appear next to the calendar 30 under bulletin , listed by date and time . reminders and alarms can be set using the calendar feature . the personal and company bulletin 25 a , 25 b can be used to track all personal and company appointments , meetings , signings , deadlines , etc . personal bulletins can be shielded from other company employees , while company bulletins are typically viewable by all company personnel with access to the program . from the menu bar 35 of the welcome screen , the “ application ” drop down menu 40 allows a mortgage broker to create a new client file . the new client file is populated with the necessary information , e . g . client name , account number , personal information , loan type and amount , and contact information . once the file is created , it appears on the pipeline report 10 as a pending loan and the system will automatically generate a user name and pass code for the borrower to access the system and view loan status , documents and a time and date stamped conversation log . additional pull - down menus can assign a status to the new file ( active , closed , pending , suspended , denied , cancelled , etc . ), as well as lead type ( personal or company ) and category . the lead information can be used to ensure that proper commissions are fulfilled and various marketing strategies can be assessed ( newspaper versus telephone listing for example ). this information can be presented in a lead report that collects all of the lead data to better analyze marketing effectiveness . a second pull down menu from the menu bar 35 is the loan menu 45 , including an information sheet that consolidates all of the client &# 39 ; s loan data onto a single sheet . the information sheet collects data used in various standard mortgage loan forms ( 1008 , 1003 ), credit reports , income statements , asset statements , and other documentation . a module in the program can later transfer the data from the loan information sheet to standard loan applications for each proposal , thereby saving valuable time . the loan pull down menu 45 also includes a proposal option that allows the broker to set up loan proposals for each loan scenario of the client . the proposal option creates various loan forms ( 1008 , 1003 , good faith estimate ( gfe ), and truth in lending statement ( til )) without having to reenter the information each time . the loan program template from within the proposal menu allows the broker to select from among many standard loan types , such as “ thirty year fixed ,” “ ten year arm ,” etc . other loan types can be customized and entered into the menu to increase flexibility and track trends and changes in the loan industry . there is also a screen to edit loan proposals , including changing the margin , index , loan amount , personal information , and payments . this edit function can also be used to create a new loan proposal . a loan proposal , as shown in fig2 , reflects the basic terms for the mortgage client &# 39 ; s loan request . there is a box 55 to enter and save comments on the page , such as any particular needs or requests of the client or any special conditions of the loan proposal . the tool bar 60 includes an e - mail menu 65 that allows the broker to e - mail selected recipients the loan proposal . in addition , the 1008 transmittal summary , 1003 uniform residential loan application , the good faith estimate , and the truth in lending forms created automatically with a click of mouse using the data already provided in the client &# 39 ; s loan proposal . from the main menu , the loan pull - down menu 45 can be activated to view a loan status 76 as shown in fig3 . the loan status page shows various tasks 75 associated with a loan proposal , including credit report , pre - approval , escrow opening , title report , appraisal , loan approval , rate lock , documentation order , funding conditions , signing , funding , and recording . each condition has several columns 80 that allow tracking and planning , including dates for requests , estimated time to complete , receipt of documents , deadlines , reminders , and comments . the loan pull down menu 45 also has a documents option 85 that allows the broker to customize loan files by adding , deleting , or amending various loan documents associated with each loan proposal or loan file . when activated the documents option , the default loan documents 82 are highlighted as well as the documents 84 included in the requests / verifications disclosures , disclosures , state specific documents , fha forms , and miscellaneous tabs 90 ( fig4 ). the requests / verification tab 92 is a pull down menu that includes a form for a requests for : appraisal ; escrow and title , escrow and title fees ; verification of benefits ; verification of deposit ; verification of employment ; verification of loan , verification of rent or mortgage ; and a survey request . other forms can be added to the list using an add tab 100 . with each document , all necessary data can be entered including dates ordered , submitted , inspected , received , and so forth , as well as add comments and reminders for tracking the document . each document can be set so as to select a read permission for the borrower and / or the lender . as shown in fig5 , the broker checks a box 105 that allows either the borrower or the lender to read the document . if unchecked , neither the borrower nor the lender will have access to the particular document . in this way , the broker can manage the data and ensure that information is limited to only those individuals that the broker feels needs the information . once completed , an “ add ” button 106 is clicked to add the document to the customer file . the loan pull down menu 45 further includes a conversation option 110 for activating a communication log between the broker , the borrower , and the lender . each entry in the log is date and time stamped 115 to ensure proper tracking . as shown in fig6 , new comments are entered in a new comment box 120 , where the broker types in a message or request for the borrower or lender . each comment has a read permission 130 to control who has access to the comments , activated by the broker . the new comment box 120 also includes reminders 135 to follow - up or provide a deadline for responding to the communication . the loan pull down menu 45 also includes an auto - marketing option 140 that allows the broker to promote his or her services and generate new business . the auto - marketing sends an e - mail or other communication to the borrower in the event of a specified condition . for example , the mortgage broker could enter the borrower &# 39 ; s birth date 150 and have the program send an e - mail on the borrower &# 39 ; s birthday every year wishing the borrower a happy birthday . alternatively , the broker could enter an interest rate of the borrower and set the program to send an e - mail message to the borrower if the current interest rate is more than a predetermined threshold 160 below the client &# 39 ; s interest rate , and invite the borrower to contact the broker about refinance options 165 . in this case , a threshold value is set in the marketing box 170 ( fig7 ) and a message is entered in the text box 180 inviting the customer to call the broker about new lower rates . when a file is complete , the broker can then submit the borrower &# 39 ; s loan file to subscribing lenders through the lender database . subscribing lenders can price , approve , and / or make suggestions to loan files and send them back to the broker through the lender database . from the loan pull down menu , the lender database option is selected . the broker will have the option of selecting any lender by name within the database , or select all lenders to permit all subscribing wholesale lenders in the lender database to view the file . the broker can enter comments and include any documents as part of the file . once the files are checked , the broker clicks on the “ submit ” button that causes the file to be uploaded to the lender database . a message is automatically sent by the program to the broker informing the broker that the file was successfully uploaded to the lender database . the broker can review the loan file and its documents from the lender database at any time , as also review which lenders have been given access to the loan file . upon receiving a response from the lender ( such as , for example , a present loan rate and a request for further information ), the broker can click on the view new responses button and review the lender &# 39 ; s response . the broker can edit any of the loan information and resend it to the same lender , or the edited file can be resent to the lender database for viewing by all lenders with permission to access the file . additional comments can be entered via the communications log , and the dialog between the lender and borrow can continue in the manner indefinitely . fig8 is a flow chart of typical steps carried out by the mortgage broker . the flow chart reflects the possible actions of the broker beginning with step 200 where the broker logs into the website using the key or password and enters information for a new client . the information is entered in an information sheet and stored for future use . in step 205 , the broker uploads all the necessary loan documentation that accompanies a loan application , including for example the standard loan application forms such as the 1008 and 1003 , the good faith estimate and truth in lending statement , and any other documentation that is pertinent to the loan evaluation . such documents can include credit reports , property comparisons , collateral statements , and the like . the documents and applications are then assigned a permission in step 210 that governs who may view the individual documents . the broker may allow all lenders to view the file , or permit only selected lenders access . in step 215 , the various documents and loan applications are consolidated in a loan file , and the broker then selects which lenders will have access to the loan file from the lender database in step 220 . the loan file is submitted to the lender database in step 225 for review by the selected lenders , and awaits responses from the lenders on the loan file . in step 230 , the broker receives a report on the top twenty lender responses , with the report having the lenders with the lowest interest rate at the top of the list and the highest interest rate at the bottom of the list . in the case of equal interest rates , the lender with the shortest response time is given the higher position . in step 235 , the broker prepares a loan proposal for the client based on the selected lender best suited for the particular client . typical activities in the lender database are reflected in the flow chart of fig9 , where step 240 represents the receipt of the loan documents and applications in the lender database from the mortgage broker . the lender database then sorts the received documents by broker in step 245 , and the broker establishes a loan file comprising selected documents in step 250 . the lenders may then access the loan file from the database , and a response is submitted back to the lender database in step 255 . a filter in the program stores the first twenty responses in a hierarchy based on the best interest rate offered , with the quickest response time assigned the favored position in the case of equal rates in step 260 . the mortgage broker then accesses the stored lender responses in step 265 in the order established by the filter for review and assistance in selected a possible lender . fig1 is a flow chart that reflects the typical actions of the wholesale lender , who logs into the website in step 270 and selects a state in step 275 . from a list of brokers within that selected state , the lender selects a broker in step 280 and then selects a loan file from among the broker &# 39 ; s accessible files on the lender database in step 285 . the lender reviews , evaluates , and responds to the loan file in step 290 by approving , rejecting , commenting , or taking other actions in connection with the terms of the loan . the response is then submitted to the lender database in step 295 for retrieval by the mortgage broker , and the process is repeated for additional files and other clients . a novel feature of the present invention is the ability to generate a lender report that allows the mortgage broker to view all lenders responses that the loan file was sent to . the program creates a hierarchy of lender responses that is preferably based on the best interest rate for the specified loan . the report then generates a list of lender responses , with the lowest interest rate appearing at the top of the list and the highest interest rate appearing at the bottom of the list . where two or more interest rates are equal , the lender providing the fastest response time is placed above the others with equal interest rates . in this manner , competition is fostered between competing lenders to provide the lowest interest rate , and also to respond in an expeditious manner to the mortgage broker &# 39 ; s loan proposal . although the broker is free to select any lender from the report , the hierarchy provides an advantage to those lenders at the top of the list in that they are in the most favorable position to catch the broker &# 39 ; s attention and secure the business . another novel feature of the present invention is the ability to assign different security levels for each broker / user by using a drop down menu . security level 1 can be used for administrators and key personnel , where security level 1 permits the user to edit , change , and delete loan information on closed files . the administrator can also add , edit , delete , and transfer license keys to other users within the lender &# 39 ; s business and edit certain information contained on the lender &# 39 ; s database about the lender . security level 2 allows the user to view , edit , and / or change loan information on closed files . level 2 , which is typical of a manager level position , also allows the user to access all saved files within the company . level 3 security may be assigned to other individuals in the broker &# 39 ; s business , and allows the user to read the files but make no further changes to files that are set at “ close ” status . further , only those files assigned to that particular user can be viewed by level 3 personnel , while levels 1 and 2 can view all files within the company . yet another novel feature of the present invention is the ability to generate reports to evaluate past performances of the lenders . for example , a mortgage broker can quickly generate a report of those lenders that have previously responded to a loan proposal and the results of their responses . those lenders with poor performances can be removed from the permission list , while higher performing lenders can be increased in frequency . lenders can track their own performance as well to evaluate their current operation and prospects for improved performance . yet another feature of the present invention is the ability of the wholesale lender to use the program to track leads for new or repeat business , attribute those leads to a sales representative or other employee , and determine a commission based on the leads . the leads are usually generated by the loan officer and / or processor , and commission rates can be input into the program for different types of products . the broker &# 39 ; s administrator enters the program and , using the admin tab , clicks on the company to set base and commission structures for each type of lead generated by the loan officer and / or loan processor . the administrator enters information on different types of leads ( personal or company ), lead categories ( call in , newspaper , flyer , etc . ), employee position ( loan officer , loan processor , etc . ), fee type ( origination , rebate ), and a base fee generally charged for the service . the administrator also assigns a commission percentage , ranging for example from 40 % to 80 %, for the service . the program then tracks the commissions for each employee automatically , and can be used to prepare a report at regular intervals for payroll purposes . this auto - commission feature reduces the amount of time necessary to track and allocate commissions to the broker &# 39 ; s various loan officers and processors , further enticing the wholesale lender to subscribe to the database and program &# 39 ; s services . the features of the present invention described above are intended to be illustrative of the present invention but not limiting . rather , the concepts described herein are intended to provide context to the appended claims without limiting their scope to the described embodiments . accordingly , the claims should be construed in view of the aforementioned described embodiments , but the meanings of the words in the claims are intended to be those conveyed by their ordinary and customary usage .	6
referring to fig1 a robot system to which a robot coordinate system setting method according to one embodiment of this invention is applied is installed , e . g ., in a factory line , and comprises a first robot body 10 and a second robot body 20 which are arranged at a distance from each other . although not illustrated in detail , the first robot body 10 comprises , e . g ., a multijoint robot including a swivel support 11 , which is placed on a base secured to the floor and is coupled thereto through a first joint , and an arm 12 having first and second links . the first link is coupled to the swivel support 11 through a second joint , and the second link is coupled to the first link through a third joint . the first robot body 10 further includes servomotors associated with axes through which the swivel support 11 and the first and second links are respectively actuated , pulse coders associated with the respective servomotors for detecting a joint angle , and current value registers to which outputs of the respective pulse coders are supplied and which retain data representing current joint angles . the second robot body 20 comprises a similar multijoint robot . in fig1 reference numerals 21 and 22 denote those parts of the second robot body 20 which correspond respectively to the swivel support 11 and the arm 12 of the first robot body 10 . further , the robot system comprises first and second robot control units 30 and 40 for controlling the operation of the first and second robot bodies 10 and 20 , respectively , and a vision system 50 . the robot control units 30 and 40 each function as computing means and setting means for setting a common coordinate system , described in detail later . the first robot control unit 30 constitutes a first robot is used as a reference robot , in cooperation with the first robot body 10 , and the second robot control unit 40 constitutes a second robot with respect to which a coordinate system is to be set , in cooperation with the second robot body 20 . the vision system 50 of the robot system includes a camera 51 serving as a visual sensor for recognizing , e . g ., an object of work on the factory line , and a visual sensor control unit 52 for obtaining image data by subjecting an image signal from the camera 51 to image processing and supplying the obtained image data to the first and second robot control units 30 and 40 . the first robot control unit 30 stores a first control program for controlling the first robot body , which is described using a common coordinate system x1y1z1 shared by the first and second robot bodies 10 and 20 , and controls the operation of the servomotors associated with the individual axes of the first robot body 10 in accordance with commands which are obtained through transformation of commands in the first control program by using a coordinate transformation matrix which will be mentioned later , and thus are expressed with reference to a first robot coordinate system ( not shown ) peculiar to the first robot body 10 . similarly , the second robot control unit 40 controls the operation of the second robot body 20 in accordance with commands corresponding to those in a second control program and expressed with reference to a second robot coordinate system ( not shown ). a control panel ( not shown ) is provided at each of the robot control units 30 and 40 to permit a manual robot operation . the following is a description of a procedure for setting a common coordinate system shared by the first and second robots in the robot system having the above - described configuration . the operator places a first jig 61 for the common coordinate system at a first position which is inside the domain of motion of the arm 12 of the first robot body 10 but outside the domain of motion of the arm 22 of the second robot body 20 . namely , the first jig 61 is placed at a position accessible only by the first robot . subsequently , the operator places a second jig 62 for a provisional coordinate system at a position which is inside the domains of motion of the robot arms 12 and 22 and thus accessible by both robots . the operator then manually operates the first robot body 10 through the control panel of the first robot control unit 30 , to position the distal end of the first robot arm 12 at a first mark on the first jig 61 corresponding to the origin o1 of the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , and operates a predetermined button on the control panel , with the robot arm held at this position , to teach the first robot the origin o1 . in response to this teaching operation , the first robot control unit 30 reads out joint angle data of the individual axes of the first robot body 10 from the respective current value registers when the distal end of the arm 12 is positioned at the origin o1 , and then stores the data in a memory . thereafter , points a1 and b1 on x1 and y1 axes , respectively , of the common coordinate system corresponding to second and third marks on the first jig 61 are sequentially taught to the first robot in a similar manner , and joint angle data related to the points a1 and b1 is stored in the memory . the first robot control unit 30 recognizes the relationship between the first robot coordinate system set with respect to the first robot and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , based on the joint angle data representing the three points o1 , a1 and b1 , and then calculates a first coordinate transformation matrix for a transformation between the first robot coordinate system and the common coordinate system . namely , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 is set with respect to the first robot . subsequently , the operator manually operates the first robot body 10 to position the distal end of the first robot arm 12 successively at first to third marks on the second jig 62 , and sequentially teaches the first robot the origin o2 and points a2 and b2 on x2 and y2 axes of a provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 corresponding to the first to third marks , respectively . in response to the teaching operations , the first robot control unit 30 stores joint angle data related to the points o2 , a2 and b2 in the memory , then calculates a second coordinate transformation matrix for a coordinate transformation between the first robot coordinate system , set with respect to the first robot and the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 , and the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 , based on the joint angle data , and stores the calculated transformation matrix in the memory . further , based on the thus - calculated second transformation matrix and the previously calculated first transformation matrix , the robot control unit 30 calculates a third coordinate transformation matrix t1 for a transformation between the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , stores data representing the coordinate transformation matrix t1 in the memory and at the same time supplies the data to the second robot control unit 40 . this data is stored in a memory of the second robot control unit 40 . the operator then manually operates the second robot body 20 and positions the distal end of the second robot arm 22 successively at the first to third marks on the second jig 62 , to thereby sequentially teach the second robot the origin o2 , and the points a2 and b2 on the x2 and y2 axes , respectively , of the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 corresponding to the first to third marks . the second robot control unit 40 stores joint angle data related to the points o2 , a2 and b2 in the memory , and based on the joint angle data , calculates a fourth coordinate transformation matrix for a transformation between the second robot coordinate system , set with respect to the second robot and the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 , and the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 . further , based on the fourth transformation matrix thus calculated and the third transformation matrix t1 for the transformation between the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , read from the memory , the robot control unit 40 calculates a fifth coordinate transformation matrix for a transformation between the second robot coordinate system and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , and stores the calculated fifth matrix in the memory . consequently , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 is set with respect to the second robot which is inaccessible to the first jig 61 , without using a special jig accessible by both the first and second robots or changing the positions of the robots . after the common coordinate system is set with respect to the first and second robots , a robot operation is carried out . during the course of longterm operation , a robot may develop trouble , and in this case , a substitute robot is installed and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 is set with respect thereto . for example , if the second robot body 20 develops trouble and , as shown in fig2 a third robot body 70 is arranged at a position coinciding or not coinciding with the position at which the second robot body has been installed , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 must be set with respect to the third robot . the third robot comprises the third robot body 70 and the second robot control unit 40 , as in the case of the first and second robot bodies 10 and 20 . reference numerals 71 and 72 represent a swivel support and an arm , respectively . when setting the common coordinate system x1y1z1 with respect to the third robot , the operator places a third jig 63 , which may be the same as or different from the second jig 62 , at a third position accessible by both the first and third robot bodies 10 and 70 . the third position may or may not be coincident with the position ( second position ) at which the second jig 62 was placed during the previous setting of the common coordinate system . subsequently , the operator manually operates the first robot body 10 , and positions the distal end of the first robot arm 12 successively at first to third marks on the third jig 63 respectively corresponding to the origin o3 , and points a3 and b3 on x and y axes of a second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 , which may be identical with or different from the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 , to thereby sequentially teach the first robot the three points o3 , a3 and b3 with the robot arm positioned at these points . in response to the teaching operations , the first robot control unit 30 detects joint angle data related respectively to the three points o3 , a3 and b3 and stores the detected data in the memory . the first robot control unit 30 then calculates a sixth coordinate transformation matrix for a transformation between the first robot coordinate system , set with respect to the first robot and the provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 , and the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 , on the basis of the joint angle data related to the three points o3 , a3 and b3 . subsequently , based on the sixth thus - calculated transformation matrix and the first transformation matrix for the transformation between the first robot coordinate system and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , calculated during the previous setting of the common coordinate system , the first robot control unit 30 calculates a seventh coordinate transformation matrix t2 for a transformation between the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , and supplies the data representing the transformation matrix t2 to the second robot control unit 40 . the operator then positions the distal end of the third robot arm 72 successively at the marks on the third jig 63 corresponding to the three points o3 , a3 and b3 of the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 , and teaches the third robot the three points o3 , a3 and b3 sequentially with the robot arm positioned at the respective points . in response to the teaching operations , the second robot control unit 40 successively obtains joint angle data related to the three points o3 , a3 , and b3 , and computes an eighth transformation matrix for a coordinate transformation between a third coordinate system peculiar to the third robot and the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 . further , based on this eighth transformation matrix and the seventh transformation matrix t2 for the transformation between the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , a ninth transformation matrix for a coordinate transformation between the third robot coordinate system and the common coordinate system x1y1z1 is calculated and stored in the memory . as a result , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 is set with respect to the third robot . unlike the conventional method in which , when a substitute robot is installed , the common coordinate system must be set again with respect to all robots by using a jig for setting the common coordinate system , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 can be easily set with respect to the substitute robot , and therefore , a factory line or the like can be readily restored after a substitute robot is installed because of robot trouble . this invention is not limited to the above - described embodiment , and various modifications can be made . for example , although the embodiment is described with reference to a robot system including two multijoint robots , the invention can be applied to a robot system including three or more robots of various types . furthermore , in the foregoing embodiment , the common coordinate system x1y1z1 , the provisional coordinate system x2y2z2 and the second provisional coordinate system x3y3z3 are set on the first to third jigs 61 to 63 , respectively , but they may be set in various ways insofar as the coordinate positions of the jigs with reference to the coordinate systems are known or measurable .	6
this invention discloses the use of amine , hydroxyl and acrylic functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes to prepare alumoxane - polymer composite and hybrid materials . the functionalized alumoxanes are cross - linked with a reactive compound to form a polymeric compound . in the terms of this invention , it is possible to describe a generic carboxylate - alumoxane / polymer hybrid or composite material to consist of ( a ) an aluminum oxide nano - particle , ( b ) a carboxylate group chemically bonded to the aluminum - oxide particle surface , ( c ) a linkage unit of the carboxylate alumoxane , ( d ) a chemically reactive substituent , and ( e ) a reactive compound capable of cross - linking with substituent ( d ). this structure is represented schematically in fig4 . the combination of parts ( a ) to ( c ) is referred to herein as a carboxylate - alumoxane . the combination of parts ( a ) to ( d ) is herein termed a chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane . finally , the combination of parts ( a ) to ( e ) is the subject of this invention . the reactive compound , which may comprise a polymer precursor , a polymer with reactive groups , or another functionalized alumoxane , cross - links with the alumoxane ( a )-( d ) to form a polymer backbone . the polymer back - bone may be formed separately from the carboxylate - alumoxane or may contain the carboxylate - alumoxane as one of its constituents . the polymer back - bone can be organic or inorganic . as discussed above , carboxylate - alumoxanes , also known as carboxylato - alumoxanes , are inorganic - organic hybrid materials that contain a boehmite - like ([ alo ( oh )] n ) aluminum oxygen core ( fig1 ), to whose surfaces are attached covalently bound carboxylate groups ( i . e ., rco 2 − , where r = alkyl or aryl group ) ( fig3 ) ( landry et al ., 1995 ). the carboxylate groups are tethered to the aluminum - oxygen surface through bidentate bonding of the carboxylate group to two aluminum atoms on the surface of the boehmite particle . the properties and processability of the carboxylate - alumoxanes are strongly dependent on the nature and size of the attached organic groups . until recently , carboxylate - alumoxanes were not very useful as processable precursors because they were difficult to prepare . prior to discovery of a new synthetic route ( apblett et al ., 1992 ), carboxylate - alumoxanes were prepared by the reaction of pyrophoric organo - aluminum ( e . g ., triethylaluminum ) with carboxylic acids . ( kimura , y . et al . ; coordination structure of the aluminum atoms of poly ( methylaloxane ), poly ( isopropoxylaloxane ) and poly [( acyloxy )- aloxane ]; 9 polyhedron 371 - 76 , no . 23 ( 1990 )) and ( pasynkiewicz , s . ; alumoxanes : synthesis , structures , complexes and reactions ; 9 polyhedron 429 - 53 , no . 2 / 3 ( 1990 )). the high cost of the organometallic compounds and the difficulty of handling highly reactive materials provided a high barrier to the use of carboxylate - alumoxanes as materials for improving the properties of thermoset polymers . the preferred carboxylate - alumoxanes of the present invention are prepared by the reaction of boehmite or pseudoboehmite with carboxylic acids in a suitable solvent . in addition to the carboxylate groups , the carboxylic acids also contain terminal amine , hydroxyl or acrylic groups . a representative sample of suitable carboxylic acids is shown in fig5 . the boehmite ( or pseudoboehmite ) source can be a commercial boehmite product such as catapal ( a , b , c , d , or fi , condea - vista chemical company ), boehmite prepared by the precipitation of aluminum nitrate with ammonium hydroxide and then hydrothermally treated at 200 ° c . for 24 hours , or boehmite prepared by the hydrolysis of aluminum trialkoxides followed by hydrothermal treatment at 200 ° c . preferred methods for the preparation of the pseudoboehmite or boehmite particles are those that produce particle sizes of the carboxylate - alumoxanes below 1000 nm and more preferably below 100 nm . the reaction of the pseudoboehmite ( or boehmite ) with the carboxylic acid can be carried out in either water or a variety of organic solvents ( including , but not limited to toluene and xylene ). however , it is preferable to use water as the solvent so as to the minimize the production of environmentally problematic waste . in a typical reaction , the carboxylic acids are added to boehmite or pseudoboehmite particles , the mixture is heated to reflux , and then stirred for a period of time . the water is removed and the resulting solids are collected . the solids can be re - dispersed in water or other solvents in which the alumoxane and other polymer precursor components are soluble . it is not necessary to remove the water if the functionalized alumoxanes are to be used in waterborne resin - based polymerization reactions . the carboxylic acid can be any monocarboxylic acid . the carboxylic acid can be aromatic or aliphatic , and can contain hetero - atom functional groups such as hydroxyls , amines , etc . the solubility of the carboxylate alumoxanes is dependent only on the identity of the carboxylic acid residue , which is almost unrestricted according to the present invention , providing it contains a reactive substituent that reacts with the desired co - reactants . the solubilities of the carboxylate - alumoxanes are therefore readily controllable , so as to make them compatible with any desired co - reactants . while these advantages are significant , the carboxylate - alumoxanes have additional benefits with respect to large scale production of ternary and quaternary ceramics . the most dramatic of these is the simplicity of the alumoxane methodology . the alumoxane route is simple , and can be halted and / or modified at any stage without significant effects on the products . a careful control of ph , the use of additives to inhibit precipitation , and slow concentration steps are not required , thus making the alumoxane route easier and quicker than prior art techniques . another benefit with respect to large scale processing is the relatively low cost of the alumoxane precursors . alumoxane - polymer condensation polymer composites that can be produced in accordance with the present invention include , without limitation , epoxies , phenol - formaldehyde resins , polyamides , polyesters , polyimides , polycarbonates polyurethanes and quinone - amine polymers . in addition , we describe the incorporation of acrylic and alkene substituted carboxylate - alumoxanes such as methacrylate - alumoxane in polyacrylate and polyolefin composites . to prepare the aromatic hydroxyl substituted carboxylate - alumoxanes , 4 - hydroxybenzoic acid or diphenolic acid ( 4 , 4 - bis ( 4 - hydroxyphenyl ) valeric acid ) ( fig5 ) were added to the pseudoboehmite / boehmite sol and stirred with heating . in practice , any aromatic ring containing a hydroxyl group and a carboxylic acid can be used to prepare an aromatic hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane . to prepare the aliphatic hydroxyl substituted carboxylate - alumoxanes , dimethylolpropionic acid ( 2 , 2 - bis -( hydroxymethyl ) propionic acid ) ( fig5 ) was added to an aqueous pseudo - boehmite / boehmite sol and stirred with heating . in practice , any aliphatic carboxylic acid containing a hydroxyl group can be used to prepare an aliphatic hydroxyl alumoxane . to prepare aromatic amine substituted carboxylate - alumoxanes , 4 - aminobenzoic acid was added to an aqueous pseudo - boehmite / boehmite sol and stirred with heating . in practice , any aromatic ring containing a primary or secondary amine and a carboxylic acid can be used to prepare an aromatic amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane . to prepare aliphatic amine substituted carboxylate - alumoxanes , 6 - aminohexanoic acid or 2 , 6 - diaminohexanoic were added to an aqueous pseudo - boehmite / boehmite sol and stirred with heating . in practice , any aliphatic carboxylic acid containing a primary or secondary amine group can be used to prepare an aliphatic amine alumoxanes . the carboxylate - alumoxanes containing functionalized carboxylic acids were then incorporated into a range of polymer matrices by reaction of the aliphatic and aromatic amines and aliphatic and aromatic hydroxyls with reactive groups of a number of low molecular weight polymer precursors . the preparation of the alumoxane - polymer composites are described in the following paragraphs . the aliphatic and aromatic amine alumoxanes and the aliphatic and aromatic hydroxyl alumoxanes were reacted with a range of low molecular weight polymer precursors to form alumoxane - polymer composites having epoxy , phenol - formaldehyde resin , polyamide , polyester , polyimide , polycarbonate , polyurethane and quinone - amine polymer matrices . in general , the aliphatic and aromatic amine alumoxanes and the aliphatic and aromatic hydroxyl alumoxanes were dispersed into a solvent containing the low molecular weight polymer precursors and any additional components including , but not limited to : catalysts , defoamers , stabilizers , and initiators . the temperature was then increased to initiate cross - linking and to cause the composite material to polymerize and solidify . for some materials it was not necessary to composite material to polymerize and solidify . for some materials it was not necessary to supply any external heat , since the polymerization reaction could be carried out at room temperature . epoxy resins are widely used thermoset materials with significant applications in electronics packaging , coatings and as structural materials . epoxy resins are easily extruded and / or molded , have moderate strength , and low hardness ( stevens , m . p . ; polymer chemistry 374 - 79 ; oxford university press , ( 1990 )). epoxy resins generally consist of two parts : a resin and a hardener . fig6 shows a schematic representation of the formation of a two part epoxy resin via the reaction of a bi - functional oxirane ( resin ) and hydroxyl or amine containing compound ( cross - linking agent , also called the hardener ). the resin component is commonly a low molecular weight bi - functional oxirane ( i . e ., epoxide ring containing ). the hardener contains a cross - linking agent , which is also a low molecular weight compound having active hydrogens ( e . g . hydroxyls or amines ). the materials used most often for reaction with the oxirane ring are primary and secondary amines and hydroxyl groups ( tess , r . w . ; epoxy resins chemistry and physics of modern material , intertext ( 1973 )); ( mcadams , l . v . and gannon , j . a .,; 6 encyclopedia of polymer science and engineering 322 - 82 ( 1985 )); ( ellis , b ., editor ; chemistry and technology of epoxy resins ; ch . 1 , 2 , 4 , and 7 ; blackie academic and professional ( 1993 )). although the application of temperature may be sufficient to cause cross - linking between the epoxy and the amines or hydroxyls , catalysts such as basic tertiary amines are commonly used to initiate and accelerate the cross - linking reaction . alternatively , the reaction can be catalyzed by photolysis . using such epoxy resin systems , three generic classes of alumoxane - based materials are possible . first , a chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane may be incorporated as an additional cross - linking agent into an existing resin / hardener system . such an alumoxane - based material is termed herein a “ composite material .” fig7 shows a schematic representation of a composite material formed by the partial replacement of an existing cross - linking agent with a chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane . second , the chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane may be used in place of the cross - linking agent . such a alumoxane - based material is termed herein a “ hybrid material .” fig8 shows a schematic representation of a hybrid material formed from the use of a chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane as the cross - linking agent . third , two different chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes can partially or completely replace both the resin and hardener . such an alumoxane - based material is termed herein a “ bis - alumoxane material .” fig9 shows two schematic representations of two types of bis - alumoxane materials formed by the use of two chemically functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes as the resin and cross - linking agent respectively . we have prepared carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy hybrid materials through the reaction of amine and hydroxyl functionalized alumoxanes with commercially available epoxy resin components . fig1 shows a simplified schematic of the reaction between the hydroxy functionalized alumoxane and an epoxy resin ( dow chemical &# 39 ; s der 332 ) to form the alumoxane - epoxy hybrid material . since the carboxylate - alumoxane surface is covered with the hydroxy - functionalized carboxylate groups , the carboxylate - alumoxane provides three - dimensional cross - linking with the polymer matrix . hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes that have been used to prepare the carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy polymer hybrid materials include 4 - hydroxybenzenato - alumoxane , diphenolato - alumoxane and dimethylol - propionato - alumoxane . it is also possible to prepare carboxylate - alumoxane - epoxy hybrid materials using amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes . both aromatic and aliphatic amines can be used in the preparation of the carboxylate - alumoxane - epoxy hybrid material . amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes that have been used to prepare the alumoxane - epoxy polymer composites include 6 - aminohexanote - alumoxane , 2 , 6 - diaminohexanate - alumoxane and 4 - aminobenzenate - alumoxane . the use of aliphatic amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes allows fabrication of alumoxane - epoxy composites at or near room temperature . although we have demonstrated the formation of alumoxane - epoxy composites using commercial resins such as dow chemical &# 39 ; s der 332 , combinations of der 332 and der 732 , union carbide &# 39 ; s erl ( a cycloaliphatic resin ), and shell &# 39 ; s epi - rez ( a waterborne resin system ), any commercially available epoxy resin can be used to prepare the carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy polymer hybrid materials . to those skilled in the art , the reaction between any amine ( primary or secondary ) functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane or hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane and a resin containing an oxirane ring would lead to the formation of a carboxylate - alumoxane - epoxy polymer hybrid material . several alternative methods may be employed to prepare carboxylate - alumoxane / hybrid materials , however , in a typical method a mixture of an epoxy resin and a chemically - functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane is formed in a ratio appropriate for the specific chemically - functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane used and in a quantity that mirrors that of the desired final hybrid material . fig1 shows a schematic representation of the synthesis of a carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxide hybrid material . the set time may be determined by a number of methods , however , one of ordinary skill in the art will be able to develop alternate methods . a representative example of set time determination follows . given that some epoxy resins are solid or highly viscous at room temperature , the resins should be gently warmed , in a temperature controlled water bath to melt . when the epoxy is mobile , the canister of epoxy is removed from the bath and placed under a mechanical stirrer equipped with a curled steel rotor . with vigorous stirring ( ca . 700 - 1000 rpm ) the chemically - functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane should be added and thoroughly mixed . as quickly as possible , the canister should be returned to the water bath , and a temperature sensor added . ( a suitable temperature sensor would be a thermocouple .) the temperature should be carefully monitored with time . this temperature - time data can be used to determine mixing times for the final , molded , resin product . the maximum set - time for the studied system occurs at the peak in the exotherm data . in order to allow for physical testing of the carboxylate - alumoxane modified resins uniform samples ( 6 ″× 6 ″ and 1 mm thick ) can be produced using a simple mold consisting of two aluminum plates of reasonable thickness that have been tapered on one edge of one side so that when the two plates are placed together , with the tapers adjoining , a sort of funnel cavity is formed . a single flat rubber gasket fits around the edges and corners of three of the four sides of the mold ( fig1 ) such that the thickness of the gasket determines the thickness of the molded piece . the mold is cleaned using a razor blade to remove any particles remaining from previous use , and then scrubbed in opposing directions with a fine - grain steel wool pad . the plates are wiped with a cotton towel to remove any loose aluminum powder . once prepared , the plates should be coated with an anti - sticking film such as dexter brand frekote . once the anti - stick coating has dried , the gasket is placed on one of the plates so as not to obstruct the tapered opening and the matching plate placed on top of the “ sandwich .” c - clamps or similar means can be used to hold the mold together . an appropriate amount of warmed epoxide resin is placed into a disposable beaker and placed under a mechanical stirrer fitted with a curled steel rotor . the time allowed for the total resin preparation is calculated based on the set - time ( see above ) minus about 3 minutes . when ready , the carboxylate - alumoxane should be added , and mixed thoroughly with the epoxy system . once the materials are combined , the resin system is degassed by placing the mixture under a vacuum . as the pressure over the resin drops , a foam forms . after a few minutes the mixture will eventually cease to foam . once the resin is degassed , it is poured into the mold , and the mold stored in an upright position at the cure temperature . once the cure has completed , the mold is carefully separated . the resulting carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy hybrid material can then be removed from the mold . solid state nmr characterization of the carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxide hybrid materials enables optimization of the reaction between the carboxylate - alumoxane &# 39 ; s substituents and the epoxide groups . fig1 shows the 13 c cp / mas nmr spectrum for 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane showing the presence of at least two magnetically distinct benzoate groups . fig1 shows the 13 c cp / mas nmr spectrum for 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane epoxide resin prepared from a 1 : 2 weight ratio of the alumoxane with dow der 332 resin . the solution 13 c nmr spectrum of the dow der 332 resin is shown in fig1 . a comparison indicates that the signals due to the epoxide carbons of the resin are no longer present in the alumoxane - resin . this suggests that all the epoxide has reacted . [ 0069 ] fig1 is an afm image of lysine - alumoxane hybrid resin showing the uniform distribution of the carboxylate - alumoxane throughout the material . similarly , the sei micrograph in fig1 is of lysine - alumoxane hybrid resin showing the uniform distribution of the carboxylate - alumoxane throughout the material . carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy composite materials can be prepared through the reaction of an amine and a hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane with a commercially available epoxy resin system , or through the reaction of an amine and a hydroxyl functionalized alumoxane with commercially available epoxy resin components in the presence of an organic cross - linking agent ( e . g ., ethylenediamine ). the composite resins are prepared from a mixture of the appropriate carboxylate - alumoxane with a commercial resin system , such as resin services htr - 212 resin . alternatively , composite resins may also be prepared from a mixture of the appropriate carboxylate - alumoxane with a commercial epoxide and an organic cross - linking agent such as ethylenediamine ( h 2 nch 2 ch 2 nh 2 ). since it is desired that incorporation of the carboxylate - alumoxanes into the polymer matrix through covalent bonding will lead to improvement in the properties of the carboxylate - alumoxane / polymer composite , we illustrate the improvement of some of the properties of carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy polymer composites . the improvements in the properties do not imply that these are the maximum or optimal improvements that could be obtained or that incorporation of carboxylate - alumoxanes into the polymers is limited to the properties illustrated . carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy composite materials containing a range of carboxylate - alumoxane to polymer precursor ratios were prepared using 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane ( hba ), dow chemical &# 39 ; s der 332 epoxy resin and tone 0305 ( a triol from union carbide ). resins were prepared using the ratios shown in table 1 . the various formulations were then cured and machined into test shapes . rectangular bars of each epoxy formulation ( with approximate dimensions of 0 . 125 × 0 . 125 × 1 . 2 inches ) were machined and then subjected to a three point bend test to determine the flexural strength of the materials . the alumoxane - epoxy composites demonstrated better performance than the alumoxane - free epoxy resin . fig1 shows a plot of flexural strength versus carboxylate - alumoxane loading for an carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy materials . the alumoxane - free epoxy ( example 30 ) alone had a strength of 51 mpa , the triol plus 14 phr hba ( example 31 ) had a strength of 73 mpa and the 26 phr hba - alumoxane cured epoxy ( no triol , example 32 ) had a flexural strength of 97 mpa . these results indicate that the strength of the epoxy increases by almost 90 % with the introduction of 26 % ( w / w ) of the alumoxane . the dimensional stability of the alumoxane - epoxy composites was also compared to the alumoxane - free epoxies . the results of the dimensional stability studies indicate that the incorporation of the alumoxanes into the epoxy polymer matrix improves the dimensional stability of the epoxy matrix . up to 300 ° c ., the 4 - hba - alumoxane - epoxy composite material distorts by less than 1 %, while the alumoxane - free epoxy distorts by more than 2 % at temperatures less than 100 ° c . and by more than 5 % at temperatures up to 300 ° c . clearly , the incorporation of the hba - alumoxane into the polymer matrix results in a material with very good dimensional stability . phenol - formaldehyde ( phenolic ) resins are the most widely used of the thermosetting resins . the primary use of phenolic resins is as an adhesive in the manufacture of plywood . phenolic resins are condensation products between phenol ( or resorcinol ) and formaldehyde . phenolic - alumoxane polymer composites were prepared by reacting 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane with an excess of formaldehyde in an aqueous solution . the reaction was carried out in water using sodium carbonate as the base catalyst . a hard solid material was produced by heating the mixture to temperatures between 90 and 100 ° c . to those skilled in the art , fabrication of alumoxane phenolics could also be prepared through the reaction of dihydroxybenzoate - alumoxanes and formaldehyde . polyamides ( or nylons ) were among the first synthetic high polymers to be made and used on a large scale . there are four principal methods used in the synthesis of polyamides . these methods include : 1 ) the reaction between a dicarboxylic acid and a diamine ; 2 ) the dehydration condensation of an amino acid ; 3 ) the reaction between an acid dichloride and a diamine ; 4 ) the ring opening polymerization of cyclic amides . to demonstrate that an alumoxane - polyamide composite could be formed we chose to use the reaction between an amine containing alumoxane ( 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane ) and an acid dichloride ( phthaloyl chloride ). the 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane was dispersed into water and phthaloyl chloride in dichloromethane was added carefully to the aqueous solution . at the interface between the water and the dichloromethane a rubbery material was formed by the reaction of the amine functionalized alumoxane and the phthaloyl chloride . fig1 shows a simplified schematic of the reaction chemistry between the alumoxane and the acid dichloride to form the polyamide . the progression of the reaction may be followed by ftir and as is shown in fig2 . the conversion of the acid chloride to the amide was evidenced by the disappearance of the absorbance at 1789 cm − 1 ( the acid chloride carbonyl ) and the appearance of the amide i band at 1689 cm − 1 . although the preparation of an aliphatic polyamide was demonstrated , those skilled in the art will recognize that aromatic polyamide carboxylate - alumoxanes can be prepared by the reaction of the phthaloyl chloride with a carboxylate - alumoxane containing an aromatic amine . thus reaction of 4 - aminobenzenate - alumoxane with phthaloyl chloride would result in the formation of a carboxylate - alumoxane / aromatic polyamide composite . furthermore , the reaction between any amine ( primary or secondary ) functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes and any dicarboxylic acid or acid dichloride will result in the formation of carboxylate - alumoxane / polyamide hybrid and composite materials . polyimides are polymers formed by condensation reactions between dianhydrides and diamines . polyimides represent an important class of high - temperature , solvent - resistant polymers . typical uses for polyimides include electronics , sleeve bearings , valve seatings and as the matrix component of graphite composites used in numerous aerospace applications . the first preparative step involves condensation of an aromatic dianhydride and an aromatic diamine to form an intermediate poly ( amic acid ). dehydration of the poly ( amic acid ) at higher temperatures leads to the formation of the polyimide structure . fig2 shows the reaction components used to form a polyimide designated pmr - 15 . using a synthetic approach that is similar to the preparation that is used to synthesize pmr - 15 we have prepared a carboxylate - alumoxane polyimide . the carboxylate - alumoxane polyimide was prepared by the reaction of 4 - aminobenzanoate - alumoxane with btde and ne . to a solution of the 4 - aminobenzenoate - alumoxane in methanol was added a solution of btde in methanol and heated to reflux for an hour . ne in methanol was then added to the mixture and the methanol was then removed from the mixture . the resulting powder was heated to 320 ° c . using a four step temperature ramp . the formation of the alumoxane polyamide was verified by observation of ftir absorptions at 1785 cm − 1 and 1710 cm − 1 that show the presence of the imide bond . to those skilled in the art , the preparation of carboxylate - alumoxane polyimides would also be possible by reaction of any aromatic amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane and the appropriate aromatic dianhydride . thermosetting polyesters are widely used in the fabrication of moldings , laminate or reinforced structures , surface gel coatings , liquid castings and furniture . polyesters are prepared by the condensation of diols with dicarboxylic acids . the polyesters can also be formed by the reaction of diols with derivatives of carboxylic acids such as methyl esters and acid dichlorides . the preparation of a carboxylate - alumoxane polyester was carried out by reaction of a diphenolate - alumoxane with phthaloyl chloride as shown in fig2 . in this reaction diphenolic acid alumoxane and sodium hydroxide were dispersed into distilled water and the sodium salt of benzene sulfonic acid in water was added to the mixture with stirring . phthaloyl chloride was then added with vigorous stirring . after approximately 15 minutes , the solution became cloudy , and was added to cold acetone . the resulting precipitate was washed several times with cold water . formation of the carboxylate - alumoxane polyester was shown by the appearance of the ester peak absorption at 1744 cm − 1 in the product of the reaction between the diphenolato - alumoxane and the phthaloyl chloride . the formation of carboxylate - alumoxane polyesters is not limited to the two reagents described above . the carboxylate - alumoxane polyesters can also be prepared using a dicarboxylic acid or the methyl ester of a carboxylic acid and any hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane . polycarbonates are a class of polyesters derived from carbonic acid ( ho ) 2 c = o ( i . e ., [ roc ( o ) o ] 2 − ). the most widely synthesized and used polycarbonates are those prepared by the reaction of bisphenol a with either organic carbonate or phosgene gas . the widespread use of polycarbonate is due to its good balance of properties , such as high clarity , toughness , high heat deflection temperatures and dimensional stability . polycarbonate carboxylate - alumoxane was prepared from the reaction of diphenylcarbonate with 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane . these two materials ( and a base catalyst ) were slowly heated in a heat taped , thick - walled glass tube under a dynamic vacuum . as the reaction proceeded , a liquid was collected in the cold trap protecting the vacuum pump . this material was identified by ftir to be the phenol byproduct produced from the reaction of diphenylcarbonate and the 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane . after additional heating , the reaction mixture was cooled and the resulting product was characterized by ftir spectroscopy . the ftir spectra showed the presence of c — o stretching bands at 1225 cm − 1 and a strong c = o stretching band at 1775 cm − 1 . the alumoxane polycarbonate can also be prepared by the reaction of hydroxybenzoate - alumoxanes with phosgene gas or organic carbonates other than phenyl carbonate . polyurethanes are a class of materials that are prepared by the reaction of bischloroformates or diisocyanates with diols . polyurethanes are widely used as elastic fibers , foams , and coatings . carboxylate - alumoxane polyurethanes were prepared by the reaction of methylene bis -( 4 , 4 ′- phenelene diisocyanate ) ( mdi ) with hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes . the reaction of either diphenolate - alumoxane or dimethylolpropionato - alumoxane with dmi resulted in the formation of a polyurethane containing a covalently bonded carboxylate - alumoxane . to prepare the alumoxane - polyurethane mdi was dissolved in methyl isobutyl ketone ( mibk ). a separate suspension of dimethylolpropionate - alumoxane mixed with dimethyl sulfoxide was prepared and the slurry added to the mdi solution . the mixture was heated to reflux until the formation of the polyurethane was achieved . the formation of the carboxylate - alumoxane / polyurethane polymer composite was followed by ftir . as formation of the carboxylate - alumoxane / polyurethane progressed , the disappearance of the isocyanate absorption at 2262 cm − 1 was observed . alumoxane - polyurethanes can also be prepared by the reaction of any hydroxyl functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane with any diisocyanate or through the reaction of any amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane with bisdichloroformate . quinone amine polymers are prepared by a condensation reaction of diamines with quinones . quinone amine polymers have been shown to adhere to metals and to displace water from metal surfaces and have thus been investigated as coatings . quinone - amine carboxylate - alumoxane polymer composites have been prepared by the condensation reaction between benzoquinone and amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes . to prepare the quinone - amine carboxylate - alumoxanes , 2 , 6 - diaminohexanoate - alumoxane in ethanol was added to a mixture of benzoquinone in ethanol and heated at reflux for 4 hours . most of the ethanol was then removed under reduced pressure with the resulting slurry dropped in cold water to precipitate the quinone - amine carboxylate - alumoxane polymer composite . the progress of the condensation reaction was followed by ftir . the ftir spectrum shows the change of absorption from a primary amine ( 1585 cm − 1 ) to a secondary amine ( 1465 cm - 1 ) as the condensation reaction proceeded . fig2 shows a simplified reaction schematic of the reaction between an amine functionalized alumoxane and benzoquinone . quinone - amine carboxylate - alumoxane composites can be prepared by the reaction of any aliphatic amine functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane with benzoquinone . although it is desirable for the interaction of the carboxylate - alumoxane with the polymer matrix to be based upon covalent bonding , other chemical bonding interactions are also possible . hydrogen bonding , acid - base interactions and charge transfer interactions are alternatives . as an example , an aqueous solution of urea was heated with 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane . the resulting pale yellow , creamy smooth liquid was poured in a mold and heated at 90 ° c . to form a hard solid . those skilled in the art would recognize that carboxylate - alumoxane / polymer material could also be prepared by the reaction of any hydroxyl or amino functionalized carboxylate - alumoxane with any suitable hydrogen bonding molecule or polymer . a major class of thermoplastics are the polyacrylics and polyolefins . unlike the materials discussed above , these are ordinarily prepared via addition polymerization rather than condensation polymerization . polyacrylic carboxylate - alumoxane polymer composites have been prepared by the addition reaction between methylmethacrylate and methacylic acid functionalized alumoxanes . alternatively , methacrylate - alumoxane and benzoyl chloride may be reacted in the presence of methacrylic acid to produce a brittle white solid . the ftir spectrum of the washed polymer shows the absorption of the methacrylic acid carbonyl at 1697 cm − 1 and the alumoxane at 1589 cm − 1 . the peak at 1633 cm − 1 and 1648 cm − 1 due to the monomer double bond absorption has disappeared in the polymer spectrum . applications for the carboxylate - alumoxane derived resins include , but are not limited to , those where improvement of physical properties are required as compared to standard all - organic resins . the carboxylate - alumoxane derived resins have increased hardness and toughness . the carboxylate - alumoxanes are presumed to inhibit crack propagation through crack bridging . the carboxylate - alumoxane resins can be used to improve the abrasion - and scratch - resistance of resins . the presence of the carboxylate - alumoxane has been demonstrated to reduce cure time and cure temperature . the carboxylate - alumoxane resins have desirable barrier properties , including an electrical resistance of 10 10 ω . the carboxylate - alumoxane resins also may have desirable optical properties compared to the purely organic resins , including : controllable refractive index and fluorescence . the magnetic properties of the resins may be varied by the doping of the alumoxane as shown by kareiva et al . ( 1996 ). the preceding discussions illustrate the nature of the invention , i . e ., synthesis of carboxylate - alumoxane / polymer composites by the reaction of functionalized carboxylate - alumoxanes with low molecular weight polymer precursors containing reactive functional groups . these reactions lead to incorporation of the carboxylate - alumoxanes into the polymer matrix though covalent bonding between the carboxylate - alumoxane and the polymer . carboxylate - alumoxane polymer materials that can be prepared by reaction of the carboxylate - alumoxane with polymer precursors include without limitation : epoxies , phenol - formaldehyde resins , polyamides , polyesters , polyimides , polycarbonates , polyurethanes and quinone - amine polymers . similarly , alumoxanes incorporating additional metals ( metal - exchanged alumoxanes ) can replace the alumoxanes of the present invention . the following examples are presented to illustrate the ease and versatility of the approach and are not to be construed as in any way limiting the scope of the invention . the first fourteen examples illustrate the synthesis of alumoxanes having various functional groups . the balance of the examples illustrate the synthesis of compounds comprising various precursors cross - linked with variously functionalized alumoxanes . nano - sized boehmite was prepared by hydrolysis of aluminum tris ( sec - butoxide ) at 90 ° c . a typical procedure uses 500 grams of aluminum tris ( sec - butoxide ) hydrolysed in 3 . 2 liters of water . the particle size of the boehmite is 40 - 70 nm . water is removed by evaporation to give a 10 w .% solution of boehmite . a 1 : 1 mixture of boehmite ( 10 g ) and 4 - hydroxybenzoic acid ( 23 g ) were refluxed overnight in 200 ml of water . the reacted solid was filtered and washed with ethanol , ether , and finally air - dried . this reaction yielded 4 - hydroxybenzonate - alumoxane . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with 4 - hydroxybenzoic acid ( 276 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . this reaction yielded 4 - hydroxybenzonate - alumoxane . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with 4 - aminobenzoic acid ( 274 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . this reaction yielded 4 - aminobenzonate - alumoxane . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with 6 - aminonhexanoic acid ( 262 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . a 1 : 1 mixture of lysine ( 25 g ) and boehmite ( 10 g ) were refluxed overnight in 200 ml of water . the mixture was then filtered to remove any unreacted boehmite . the solution was then pumped dry . the resulting solid lysine - alumoxane was air - dried . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with lysine hydrochloride ( 356 g ). the ph was adjusted to 4 using nitric acid and the mixture was heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with an 85 % aqueous solution of lactic acid ( 212 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with an 70 % aqueous solution of hydroxyacetic acid ( 217 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with aminoacetic acid ( 150 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with an 85 % aqueous solution of 2 , 2 - bis ( hydroxymethyl ) propionic acid ( 268 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . boehmite ( 180 g ) dispersed in 2 l of distilled water was mixed with an 85 % aqueous solution of 2 , 2 - bis ( hydroxyphenyl ) valeric acid ( 572 g ) and heated to 90 ° c . overnight . the mixture was then cooled to room temperature and the water removed under vacuum using a rotary evaporator . a suspension of boehmite and methacrylic acid ( 1 : 4 ratio ) was heated to reflux in xylene for 72 hours . the solution was filtered and the volatile compounds removed under vacuum . the resulting solid was washed with ethanol and et 2 o . in a 5l round bottom flask boehmite ( 40 g ) and methacrylic acid ( 57 . 4 g ) were added to 1 . 500 l distilled water and refluxed for 2 days . the powder formed was dried and washed with 600 ml hexane to remove unreacted methacrylic acid . the mixture was filtered and dried to give a very fine white powder . the ftir spectrum indicated that absorption of the acid carbonyl at 1697 cm − 1 was replaced by the alumoxane absorption at 1583 cm − 1 . additionally , the double bond in the methacrylic acid was conjugated with the acid and was at 1633 cm − 1 , whereas the same bond in the alumoxane was not conjugated and found at the higher frequency of 1648 cm − 1 , confirming the conversion of an acrylic vinyl group to a non - conjugated system . dow der 332 dgebpa epoxy resin ( 3 g ) was heated to 40 ° c . to liquefy the resin and then 4 - hydroxybenzonate - alumoxane ( 2 g ) such as was produced in examples 2 and 3 was added and the two components were thoroughly mixed . then 0 . 025 g of 1 - methylimidazol was added to the mixture as a catalyst . the sample was maintained at a temperature between 35 - 45 ° c . during this process . the mixture was then transferred to an aluminum mold and heated to 140 ° c . for 6 hours . the material cures to a hard state that can be sanded . the cured alumoxane - containing resin was not scratched by copper or nickel coins and was only slightly scratched by a hardened steel knife edge . the ftir spectra showed the expected formation of methylene groups in the cured resin . into dow der 332 dgebpa epoxy resin , a 5 % load of 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane was added along with ancamine 1693 ( an air products curing agent ). the resin mixture was poured into a mold and heated to 150 ° c . for 2 hours . 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane ( 2 . 8 g ) was ground to a fine powder in a porcelain mortar . dow der 332 epoxy resin ( 4 . 2 g ) was warmed to 40 - 45 ° c . in a 5 ml glass vial . the 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane powder was added to the resin and the mixture stirred for 30 min . a 0 . 1 ml aliquot of 1 - methylimidazole was added and worked up over an additional 5 min . the vial was brought into an oil bath and heated at 130 - 140 ° c . for 2 hr . to yield a cream - yellow colored ceramic block . a 1 : 1 mass ratio mixture of 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane and dow der 332 epoxy resin was heated along with 0 . 1 ml of 1 - methylimidazole for 2 hours at 100 ° c . to give a pinkish - white solid . a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane and dow der 332 epoxy resin was poured into a flat mold and heated along with 0 . 1 ml of 1 - methylimidazole for 2 hours at 100 ° c . the molded material had a red color . a 1 : 3 mass ratio mixture of 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane and der 332 was poured into a small glass vial and heated along with 0 . 1 ml of 1 - methylimidazole for 2 hours at 100 ° c . the molded material had a deep red color . 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was suspended in acetonitrile ( 5 ml ) and added to an excess amount of 1 , 2 - epoxy - 3 - phenoxypropane ( 1 . 0 g ). the suspension was refluxed for five days under atmospheric pressure . the solid part was isolated by filtration and washed with acetonitrile ( 2 × 2 ml ). resin services resin htr - 212 was used in combination with resin services hardener # 874 and a suitable carboxylate - alumoxane . the optimal ratio of epoxide : alumoxane : hardener had previously been found to 5 : 2 : 1 ( by mass ). heating the composites for approximately 12 hours at 40 ° c . facilitated the cure . for example , while stirring , 2 . 02 g of diphenolate - alumoxane and 30 ml of 1 - methylimidazole were slowly added to the resin . the mixture was heated under reflux for five hours at 80 ° c . to 1 . 70 g of the diphenolato - alumoxane diglycidyl ether solution 1 . 8 g of tris -( 2 - aminoethyl ) amine , ( nh 2 ch 2 ch 2 ) 3 n , curing agent was then added and the mixture was heated for 30 minutes . removal of the solvent and curing 110 ° c . for six hours produced a hard , homogeneous alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite . a 2 : 1 mole ratio mixture of lysine - alumoxane ( lysine = h 2 n ( ch 2 ) 4 ch ( nh 2 ) co 2 h ) and dow der 332 was combined in a vial along with 1 - methylimidazole ( 0 . 1 ml ). the alumoxanes were also dissolved in a minimum amount of water to better distribute the alumoxanes throughout the resin / hardener mixture . the cured materials were a light - yellow in color , and “ bumpy ” in texture . these resins proved to be flexible and transparent when thinly coated on paper . dow der 332 epoxy resin ( 1 . 85 g ) was dissolved in 50 ml of dimethoxyethane . while stirring , 1 . 20 g of dimethylolpropionato - alumoxane and 30 ml of 1 - methylimidazole were slowly added the mixture was heated under reflux for five hours at 80 ° c . to 1 . 50 g of the dimethylolpropionato - alumoxane diglycidyl ether solution 1 . 6 g of tris -( 2 - aminoethyl ) amine , ( nh 2 ch 2 ch 2 ) 3 n , curing agent was then added and the mixture was heated for 30 minutes . removal of the solvent and curing 110 ° c . for six hours produced a hard homogeneous alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite . into dow der 332 epoxy resin , a 5 % load of methoxy ( ethoxyethoxy ) acetate - alumoxane was added along with ancamine 1693 curing agent . the resin mixture was poured into a mold and cured at 150 ° c . for 2 hours to yield a solid . into dow der 332 epoxy resin , a 5 % load of hexanoate - alumoxane was added along with ancamine 1693 curing agent . the resin mixture was poured into a mold and cured at 150 ° c . for 2 hours to yield a solid . gluconate - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of dow der 332 epoxy resin and hardener and allowed 24 hours to cure without heating . the resultant solid was yellow in color , tacky to the touch , and relatively brittle . acetate - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of dow der 332 epoxy resin and hardener and allowed 24 hours to cure with heating ( 50 ° c .). the resultant solid was yellow in color , less tacky to the touch than the unheated sample , and similarly brittle . a carboxylate - alumoxane free epoxy was prepared by mixing 100 g of dow der 332 epoxy resin with 50 g of tone 0305 ( union carbide ). to this mixture was also added 0 . 5 g of methylimidazole and the mixture was poured into a mold and heated at 50 ° c . overnight . flexural tests on machined 0 . 125 ″× 0 . 125 ″× 1 . 2 ″ test specimens using a three point bend test gave an average flexural strength of 51 mpa . a carboxylate - alumoxane / epoxy ( 14 phr alumoxane ) was prepared by mixing 100 g dow der 332 epoxy resin , 50 g tone 0305 resin and 25 grams of 4 - hydroxybenzenato - alumoxane along with 0 . 5 g of methylimidazole . the mixture was poured into a mold and heated overnight at 50 ° c . flexural tests on machined 0 . 125 ″× 0 . 125 ″× 1 . 2 ″ test specimens using a three point bend test gave an average flexural strength of 73 mpa . a carboxylate - alumoxane epoxy ( 26 phr alumoxane ) was prepared by adding 35 grams of 4 - hydroxybenzenato - alumoxane to 100 grams of dow der 332 epoxy resin along with 0 . 5 grams of 1 - methylimidazole . the mixture was then poured into a mold and heated overnight at 50 ° c . flexural tests on machined 0 . 125 ″× 0 . 125 ″× 1 . 2 ″ test specimens using a three point bend test gave an average flexural strength of 97 mpa . to a solution of 1 . 9 g of a cycloaliphatic epoxy resin ( union carbide erl 4221 ) in methanol was added 1 . 0 g dimethylolpropionato - alumoxane and 30 ml of 1 - methylimidazole and the mixture was heated for an hour at 70 - 80 ° c . to the heated solution 045 0 . amine equivalents of tris -( 2 - aminoethyl ) amine , ( nh 2 ch 2 ch 2 ) 3 n , curing agent was then added and the mixture was heated for 45 minutes . removal of the solvent and curing at 90 ° c . for six hours produced a hard homogeneous alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite . the alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite was prepared by the reaction of 4 - hydroxybenzenato - alumoxane and water soluble epoxy resin and cure agents ( i . e ., epi - rez 5522 - wy - 55 resin and epi - cure 8290 respectively ). the waterborne alumoxane - epoxy resin system was prepared as a two part primer formulation . the 4 - hydroxybenzenato - alumoxanes were thoroughly mixed with the epi - rez 5522 resin along with a defoamer , dispersants , and pigments in water ( part a ). the epi - cure 8290 was also mixed with water ( part b ). the two parts are then mixed for 30 minutes at 1200 rpm before being placed in a mold and cured at 50 ° c . for approximately 12 hours to give a hard solid alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite . the alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite was prepared by the reaction of water soluble 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane and water soluble epoxy resin and cure agents ( i . e . epi - rez 5522 - wy - 55 resin and epi - cure 8290 respectively ). the waterborne alumoxane - epoxy resin system was prepared as two part primer formulations . the soluble 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane are thoroughly mixed with the epi - rez 5522 resin along with a defoamer , dispersants , and pigments in water ( part a ). the epi - cure 8290 was also mixed with water ( part b ). the two parts are then mixed for 30 min . at 1200 rpm before being placed in a mold and cured at 50 ° c . for 10 to 12 hours to give a hard solid alumoxane - epoxy polymer composite . 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane ( 9 . 6 g ) was suspended in xylene ( 100 ml ) and added by epichlorohydrine ( 45 g ) and an aqueous solution ( 20 ml ) of koh ( 18 g , 321 mmol ). this mixed solvent suspension was refluxed at ca . 140 ° c . and allowed water to distill off naturally over ca . 30 min . the suspension gradually obtained pale yellow tint and the reflux was discontinued after 3 hr . the product was dried under vacuum to yield a highly viscous product . acetate - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was first dissolved in a small amount of water and then added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of resin services htr - 212 resin and hardener # 874 and allowed 24 hours to cure with heating ( 50 ° c .). the resultant solid was yellow in color , slightly tacky to the touch . gluconic - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of resin services htr - 212 resin and hardener # 874 and allowed 72 hours to cure at 50 ° c . the resultant solid was brown in color . gluconic - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was dissolved in a minimal amount of water and added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of resin services htr - 212 resin and hardener # 874 and allowed 72 hours to cure at 50 ° c . the resultant solid was yellow in color , very brittle . di - amylphosphate - alumoxane ( 0 . 5 g ) was added to a 1 : 5 mass ratio mixture of resin services htr - 212 resin and hardner # 874 and allowed 72 hours to cure at 50 ° c . the resultant solid was red - brown in color , possessed hairline cracks throughout , and was relatively brittle . the alumoxane polyamide composite resin was prepared by adding 6 - diaminohexanoate - alumoxane ( 1 . 0 g ) to 3 . 0 ml distilled water to give a cloudy mixture which was then carefully added to a stirred solution of phthaloyl chloride ( 0 . 7 g ) in 5 ml methylene chloride . the white rubbery material formed at the interface was periodically removed and placed in water . at the end of 10 minutes the reactants were discarded and the white rubbery material washed with water several times . it was found to be insoluble in water , slightly soluble in methylene chloride and soluble in warm acetone . the reaction was monitored by ftir ; the conversion of the acid chloride to the amide was indicated by the disappearance of absorbance at 1789 cm − 1 of the acid chloride carbonyl and the appearance of the amide i band at 1689 cm − 1 . to prepare the alumoxane - quinone - amine polymer composite 2 . 70 g of the 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane in 12 ml of ethanol was added to a mixture of 1 . 62 g benzoquinone in 10 ml ethanol . the mixture was heated to reflux for 4 hours . most of the ethanol was then removed under reduced pressure and the remaining slurry dropped in cold water for precipitation . the ftir spectrum of the resulting product showed a change of absorption from the primary amine ( i . e . the 2 , 6 - diaminohexanato - alumoxane amines ) at 1585 cm − 1 to the secondary amines ( i . e . the alumoxane - quinone - amine polymer ) at 1465 cm − 1 as the reaction proceeded to prepare the alumoxane - polyurethane polymer composite , methylene diphenyl isocyanate ( mdi ) ( 25 . 0 g ) was first dissolved in 40 ml methyl isobutyl ketone . dimethylolpropionato - alumoxane ( 5 . 02 g ) was dissolved in 30 ml acetonitrile and then the acetonitrile solution was added to the mdi containing methyl isobutyl ketone solution . tin octoate was used as a catalyst at 1 % ( w / w ) concentrations to accelerate the reaction between the alumoxane and the isocynate . the mixture was allowed to reflux for 4 hours at 80 ° c ., and then left at room temperature overnight prior to separation of the products from the reaction mixture . as formation of the alumoxane - polyurethane progressed the disappearance of the isocyanate absorption at 2262 cm − 1 was observed . to prepare the alumoxane - polyester polymer composite diphenolato - alumoxane ( 2 . 6 g ) was first dissolved along with 0 . 40 g sodium hydroxide in 30 ml water . a surfactant solution prepared by the addition of 0 . 3 g of the sodium salt of benzene sulfonic acid in 3 ml water was added to the alumoxane containing solution and the mixture stirred well . phthaloyl chloride solution ( 1 . 02 g in 15 ml toluene ) was then added with vigorous stirring . after 15 minutes , the solution became cloudy , and was dropped into 50 ml cold acetone . the precipitate was washed several times with cold water . the reaction was monitored by ftir ; the preparation of the polyester was followed by the appearance of the ester peak absorption at 1744 cm - 1 . the alumoxane - polyimide polymer composite was prepared by first preparing stock solutions of btde and ne . the btde stock solution was prepared by addition of 6 . 72 g ( 20 mmol ) btda ( 3 , 3 ′, 4 , 4 ′- benzophenone tetracarboxylic acid ) to 20 . 0 ml of methanol followed by a one hour reflux . the solution a clear yellow , indicating the presence of the diester ( btde ). in a similar manner ne was prepared by the esterification of 2 . 67 ml ( 3 . 29 g ) norbornene anhydride ( na ) in 10 ml of methanol . to a solution of 2 . 0 g 4 - aminobenzenato - alumoxane in 2 . 0 ml methanol was added 5 . 8 ml of the btde stock solution . the mixture was heated for an hour under reflux , and then 2 . 7 ml ne stock solution was added . the mixture was poured into an aluminum mold . some of the methanol was boiled off on a hot plate with stirring . the alumoxane - polyimide precursor mixture was then heated according to the schedule : 70 ° c . for one hour , 100 ° c . for one hour , 240 ° c . for one hour and then 320 ° c . for eight hours . the heat cure resulted in the formation of a head tough polyimide solid . ftir was used to follow the imidization reaction . confirmation of the imidization reaction was obtained from the ftir spectrum of the resin products . the appearance of absorption at 1785 cm − 1 and 1710 cm − 1 signals the formation of the imide . an aqueous solution ( 10 ml ) of urea ( 0 . 5 g , 8 . 3 mmol ) was added by 4 - hydroxybenzoate - alumoxane ( 1 . 0 g , 3 . 9 mmol ) and refluxed for 4 hr . the resulted pale yellow creamy smooth liquid was poured in a mold and heated to 90 ° c . the water was allowed to evaporate naturally . beige tinted porous ceramic pieces were obtained . a 1 : 1 ( w / w ) mixture of poly ( vinyl alcohol ) was refluxed overnight with meea - alumoxane dissolved in water . no precipitate formed and the water was removed in vaccuo to yield a transparent film which was washed with ether and dried . a 1 : 1 ( w / w ) mixture of 4 - hydroxybenzoic alumoxane was stirred for several hours with meea - alumoxane dissolved in water . the mixture was then poured onto a fluoroware lid and allowed to evaporate to dryness . a thick white , glassy , film was obtained . a 1 : 1 ( w / w ) mixture of sebacic acid was stirred for several hours with meea - alumoxane dissolved in water . the mixture was then poured onto a fluoroware lid and allowed to evaporate to dryness . a thick white , powdery , film was obtained . dow der 332 dgebpa epoxy resin ( 3 g ) was heated to 40 ° c . to liquefy the resin and then 4 - hydroxybenzonate - alumoxane ( 2 g ) was added and the two components were thoroughly mixed . then 0 . 025 g of 1 - methylimidazol was added to the mixture as a catalyst . the sample was maintained at a temperature between 35 - 45 ° c . during this process . the mixture was then transferred to an aluminum mold containing carbon fiber tows ( fortafil 3 ) and heated to 140 ° c . for 6 hours . the sem images of the cured carbon fiber alumoxane - hybrid resin composite shows that the fiber tows are completely infiltrated . dow der 332 dgebpa epoxy resin ( 3 g ) was heated to 40 ° c . to liquefy the resin and then 4 - hydroxybenzonate - alumoxane ( 2 g ) was added and the two components were thoroughly mixed . then 0 . 025 g of 1 - methylimidazol was added to the mixture as a catalyst . the sample was maintained at a temperature between 35 - 45 ° c . during this process . the mixture was then transferred to an aluminum mold containing kevlar ™ fiber tows ( fortafil 3 ) and heated to 140 ° c . for 6 hours . the sem images of the cured carbon fiber alumoxane - hybrid resin composite shows that the fiber tows are completely infiltrated .	2
fig1 shows the mems bubble generator of the present invention applied to an inkjet printhead . a detailed description of the fabrication and operation of some of the applicant &# 39 ; s thermal printhead ic &# 39 ; s is provided in u . s . ser . no . 11 / 097 , 308 and u . s . ser . no . 11 / 246 , 687 . in the interests of brevity , the contents of these documents are incorporated herein by reference . a single unit cell 30 is shown in fig1 . it will be appreciated that many unit cells are fabricated in a close - packed array on a supporting wafer substrate 28 using lithographic etching and deposition techniques common within in the field semi - conductor / mems fabrication . the chamber 20 holds a quantity of ink . the heater 10 is suspended in the chamber 20 such that it is in electrical contact with the cmos drive circuitry 22 . drive pulses generated by the drive circuitry 22 energize the heater 10 to generate a vapour bubble 12 that forces a droplet of ink 24 through the nozzle 26 . the heat that diffuses into the ink and the underlying wafer prior to nucleation has an effect on the volume of fluid that vaporizes once nucleation has occurred and consequently the impulse of the vapor explosion ( impulse = force integrated over time ). heaters driven with shorter , higher voltage heater pulses have shorter ink decap times . this is explained by the reduced impulse of the vapor explosion , which is less able to push ink made viscous by evaporation through the nozzle . using the drive circuitry 22 to shape the pulse in accordance with the present invention gives the designer a broader range of bubble impulses from a single heater and drive voltage . fig2 is a line drawing of a stroboscopic photograph of a bubble 12 formed on a heater 10 during open pool testing ( the heater is immersed in water and pulsed ). the heater 10 is 30 microns by 4 microns by 0 . 5 microns and formed from tial mounted on a silicon wafer substrate . the pulse was 3 . 45 v for 0 . 4 microseconds making the energy consumed 127 nj . the strobe captures the bubble at it &# 39 ; s maximum extent , prior to condensing and collapsing to a collapse point . it should be noted that the dual lobed appearance is due to reflection of the bubble image from the wafer surface . the time taken for the bubble to nucleate is the key parameter . higher power ( voltages ) imply higher heating rates , so the heater reaches the bubble nucleation temperature more quickly , giving less time for heat to conduct into the heater &# 39 ; s surrounds , resulting in a reduction in thermal energy stored in the ink at nucleation . this in turn reduces the amount of water vapor produced and therefore the bubble impulse . however , less energy is required to form the bubble because less heat is lost from the heater prior to nucleation . this is , therefore , how the printer should operate during normal printing in order to be as efficient as possible . fig3 shows the bubble 12 from the same heater 10 when the pulse is 2 . 20 v for 1 . 5 microseconds . this has an energy requirement of 190 nj but the bubble generated is much larger . the bubble has a greater bubble impulse and so can be used for a maintenance pulse or to eject bigger than normal drops . this permits the printhead to have multiple modes of operation which are discussed in more detail below . fig4 shows the variation of the drive pulse using amplitude modulation . the normal printing mode pulse 16 has a higher power and therefore shorter duration as nucleation is reached quickly . the large bubble mode pulse 18 has lower power and a longer duration to match the increased nucleation time . fig5 shows the variation of the drive pulse using pulse width modulation . the normal printing pulse 16 is again 3 . 45 v for 0 . 4 microseconds . however , the large bubble pulse 18 is a series of short pulses 32 , all at the same voltage ( 3 . 45 v ) but only 0 . 1 microseconds long with 0 . 1 microsecond breaks between . the power during one of the short pulses 32 is the same as that of the normal printing pulse 16 , but the time averaged power of the entire large bubble pulse is lower . lower power will increase the time scale for reaching the superheat limit . the energy required to nucleate a bubble will be higher , because there is more time for heat to leak out of the heater prior to nucleation ( additional energy that must be supplied by the heater ). some of this additional energy is stored in the ink and causes more vapor to be produced by nucleation . the increased vapor provides a bigger bubble and therefore greater bubble impulse . lower power thus results in increased bubble impulse , at the cost of increased energy . this permits the printhead to operate in multiple modes , for example : a normal printing mode with high power delivered to each heater ( low bubble impulse , low energy requirement ); a maintenance mode with low power delivered to each heater to recover decapped nozzles ( high bubble impulse , high energy requirement ); a start up mode with lower power drive pulses when the ink is at a low temperature and therefore more viscous ; a draft mode that prints only half the dots ( for greater print speeds ) with lower power drive pulses for bigger bubbles to increase the volume of the ejected drops thereby improving the look of the draft image ; or , a dead nozzle compensation mode where larger drops are ejected from some nozzles to compensate for dead nozzles within the array . a primary objective for the printhead designer is low energy ejection , particularly if the nozzle density and nozzle fire rate ( print speed ) are high . the applicant &# 39 ; s mtc001us referenced above provides a detailed discussion of the benefits of low energy ejection as well as a comprehensive analysis of energy consumption during the ejection process . the energy of ejection affects the steady state temperature of the printhead , which must be kept within a reasonable range to control the ink viscosity and prevent the ink from boiling in the steady state . however , there is a drawback in designing the printhead for low energy printing : the low bubble impulse resulting from low energy operation makes the nozzles particularly sensitive to decap . depending on the nozzle idle time and extent of decap , it may not be possible to eject from decapped nozzles with a normal printing pulse , because the bubble impulse may be too low . it is desirable , therefore , to switch to a maintenance mode with higher bubble impulse if and when nozzles must be cleared to recover from or prevent decap e . g . at the start of a print job or between pages . in this mode the printhead temperature is not as sensitive to the energy required for each pulse , as the total number of pulses required for maintenance is lower than for printing and the time scale over which the pulses can be delivered is longer . similarly , temperature feedback from the printhead can be used as an indication of the ink temperature and therefore , the ink viscosity . modulating the drive pulses can be used to ensure consistent drop volumes . the printhead ic disclosed in the co - pending pua001us to pua015us ( cross referenced above ) describe how ‘ on chip ’ temperature sensors can be incorporated into the nozzle array and drive circuitry . the invention has been described herein by way of example only . ordinary workers in this field will readily recognize many variations and modifications which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the broad inventive concept .	1
examples of long chain - alkyls r in formula ( i ) include 2 -( hexyl ) tetradecyl , 2 -( octyl ) tetradecyl , 2 -( decyl ) tetradecyl , 2 -( dodecyl ) tetradecyl , 2 -( dodecyl ) hexadecyl , 2 -( dodecyl ) octadecyl , 2 -( dodecyl ) eicocyl , 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecyl , 2 -( tetradecyl ) octadecyl , 2 -( tetradecyl ) eicocyl , 2 -( hexadecyl ) octadecyl , 2 -( hexadecyl ) eicocyl , 2 -( octadecyl ) eicocyl , 3 -( hexyl ) tetradecyl , 3 -( octyl ) tetradecyl , 3 -( decyl ) tetradecyl , 3 -( dodecyl ) tetradecyl , 3 -( dodecyl ) hexadecyl , 3 -( dodecyl ) octadecyl , 3 -( dodecyl ) eicocyl , 3 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecyl , 3 -( tetradecyl ) octadecyl , 3 -( tetradecyl ) eicocyl , 3 -( hexadecyl ) octadecyl , 3 -( hexadecyl ) eicocyl or 3 -( octadecyl ) eicocyl . 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecyl is preferable among others . examples of cations forming a pharmaceutically acceptable salt of the glycolipid derivative of formula ( i ) include inorganic metals such as sodium , potassium , calcium or magnesium , and organic bases such as arginine or lysine . the most preferred salt of the glycolipid derivative of formula ( i ) has formula ( iia ): ## str4 ## the salt of glycolipid derivative of formula ( i ) may be synthesized by reacting the polysaccharide derivative of formula ( iii ): ## str5 ## wherein all symbols are as defined , with an alcohol of formula ( iv ): wherein r is as defined , eliminating the levuloyl group followed by sulfating , eliminating the acetyl and benzoyl groups , and converting the free acid to a desired salt . a method of synthesis of the compound of formula ( iia ) is described below in detail for exemplifying purposes . it will be easily appreciated , however , that other specific compounds encompassed within the present invention may be prepared in an analogous manner . the method starts from the compound of formula ( iii ). in the first step , the starting material ( iii ) is reacted with 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanol of formula ( v ): ## str6 ## in dichloromethane in the presence of boron trifluoride - ether complex . the next step includes elimination of levuloyl group from the product by the reaction with hydrazine monoacetate in ethanol followed by sulfating with sulfur trioxide - pyridine complex in dmf . finally acetyl and benzoyl groups are eliminated from the reaction product by subjecting to the reaction with sodium methoxide in a mixture of methanol and thf . the compound of formula ( iia ) and intermediates formed in various steps may be isolated by any conventional method such as silica gel chromatography . the starting material ( iii ) may be prepared , in turn , according to the following reaction scheme : ## str7 ## briefly , compound ( vi ) [ j . carbohydrate chem ., 12 , 1203 - 1216 ( 1993 )] is reacted with levulinic anhydride in the presence of 4 - dimethylaminopyridine to protect the 3 - hydroxyl group of the galactose moiety thereof with levuloyl whereupon compound ( vii ) is obtained . next , compound ( vii ) is catalytically hydrogenated in the presence of palladium - carbon to eliminate benzyl groups and then reacted with acetic anhydride in pyridine to produce compound ( viii ). compound ( viii ) is then reacted with trifluoroacetic acid to eliminate the 2 -( trimethylsilyl ) ethyl group whereupon compound ( ix ) is produced . finally , compound ( ix ) is reacted with trichloroaceto - nitrile in the presence of 1 , 8 - diazabicyclo [ 5 . 4 . 0 ]- 7 - undecene to produce compound ( iii ). 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanol ( v ) may be produced from 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanoic acid by esterifying with methanol in the presence of a small amount of concentrated sulfuric acid followed by reduction with lithium aluminum hydride . pharmaceutical compositions containing a salt of the glycolipid derivative of formula ( i ) may be administered orally or parenterally . the dose will vary depending upon the administration route , the age , body weight and severity of disease of the patient , and generally ranges from 0 . 1 to 600 mg / day . this dose may be administered at once or in divided doses two to four times a day . pharmaceutical formulations for oral administration include tablets , granules , powder , fine granules and capsules . tablets , granules , powder and fine granules are made by mixing the active ingredient with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier such as an excipient ( lactose , synthetic aluminum silicate , glucose , mannitol , crystalline cellulose , starch etc .,), a disintegrating agent ( cmc , sodium alginate etc .,), a lubricant ( magnesium stearate , talc etc .,), and / or a binder ( hydroxymethylcellulose , hydroxypropylmethylcellulose , polyvinylpyrrolidone etc .,), and then , if necessary forming the mixture into the desired formulation . capsules are made by filling a capsule with the above granules or powder . injectable liquid formulations may be made by dissolving or dispersing a pharmaceutically acceptable salt of the glycolipid derivative of formula ( i ) in sterile water , adding a suitable amount of an isotonic agent such as mannitol , sodium chloride , glucose , sorbitol , glycerol , xylitol , fructose , maltose or mannose , and then sterile sealing in an vial or ampoule . the injectable formulation may optionally contain a stabilizing agent such as sodium sulfite or albumin and a preversative such as benzyl alcohol . the compounds of the present invention exert a strong inhibitory effect on the binding of e -, p - or l - selectin to sialyl lewis x and exhibit a low toxicity . in an in vivo test using mice having inflammatory cell invasion induced by a lipopolysaccharide , the compounds of the present invention demonstrated a remarkable inhibitory activity against inflammatory cell invasion when administered intravenously . in the in vitro test described below , the compounds of the present invention inhibited the binding of selectin family to sialyl lewis x in a dose response manner . this suggests that the compounds of the present invention would be useful in the prophylaxis and treatment of complicated inflammatory disease such as chronic inflammation and also in the prophylaxis and treatment of ischemia - reperfusion injury because selectin - mediated cell adhesion would be prevented by binding the compounds of the present invention to the selectin family . the method using selectin - igg chimeras reported by foxall et al ., in j . cell biol ., 117 , 895 - 902 ( 1992 ) was followed . a solution of sialyl lewis x - penta - ceramide in 1 : 1 mixture of methanol and distilled water was pipetted into microtiter plate wells ( 96 wells ) at 200 pmol / well and adsorbed by evaporating the solvent . the wells were washed with distilled water , blocked with 5 % bsa ( bovine serum albumin ) - pbs ( phosphate buffered saline ) for 1 hour and washed again with distilled water after discarding the blocking solution . separately , a 1 : 1 volumetric mixture of 1 : 1000 dilution in 1 % bsa - pbs of horseradish peroxidase - labelled anti - human igg fc and a culture supernatant containing p - selectin igg chimera was incubated at room temperature for 30 minutes to form a complex . the test compound was dissolved in distilled water at 0 . 1 mm and finally diluted to final concentrations at 100 , 25 , 6 . 25 and 1 . 56 μm , respectively . reactant solutions were prepared by incubating this solution at each concentration with the above complex solution for 30 minutes at room temperature . this reactant solution was then added to the above microtiter wells at 50 μl / well and allowed to react at room temperature for 2 hours . the wells were washed thrice with pbs and distilled water respectively , and developed for 10 minutes by adding 0 . 2 mg / ml of o - phenylenediamine and 0 , 015 % of h 2 o 2 in 0 . 05m citrate - phosphate buffer ( ph 9 . 5 ) at 50 μl / well . the reaction was stopped by the addition of 2n sulfuric acid at 50 μl / well and absorbance at 490 nm was measured . percent binding was calculated by the following equation : wherein x is the absorbance of wells containing the test compound at each concentration , and a is the absorbance of control wells not containing the test compound . test no . 1 was repeated except that l - selectin igg chimera was replaced for p - selection igg chimera . the results are shown in the graph of fig2 . 144 mg of 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanoic acid was dissolved in 25 ml of methanol . after the addition of a few drops of concentrated sulfuric acid , the solution was stirred at 55 ° c . for one day , neutralized with 10 % sodium hydroxide and extracted with dichloromethane . the organic layer was washed with water , dried over anhydrous sodium sulfate and concentrated in vacuo . the residue was purified by silica gel chromatography ( ethyl acetate : hexane = 1 : 50 ) to obtain methyl 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanoate . 290 mg of this methyl ester was dissolved in 25 ml of diethyl ether and cooled to 0 ° c . after the addition of an excess of lithium aluminum hydride , the solution was stirred at room temperature for one day . the reaction mixture was then mixed with 0 . 5 ml of water and filtered to remove insoluble matter . the filtrate was evaporated in vacuo and the residue purified by silica gel chromatography ( ethyl acetate : hexane = 1 : 20 ) whereupon 204 . 6 mg of the title compound was obtained . 450 mg of 2 -( trimethylsilyl ) ethyl o -( 2 , 6 - di - o - benzoyl - β - d - galactopyranosyl )-( 1 → 4 )- o -[( 2 , 3 , 4 - tri - o - benzyl - α - l - fucopyranosyl )-( 1 → 3 )]- o - 2 , 6 - di - o - benzoyl - β - d - glucopyranoside ( vi )[ j . carbohydrate chem ., 12 , 1203 - 1216 ( 1993 )] was dissolved in a mixture of 5 ml of pyridine and 2 ml of dichloromethane . to this solution were added 150 mg of levulinic anhydride and 5 mg of 4 - dimethylaminopyridine in 2 ml of dichloromethane while keeping the temperature at - 50 ° c . after the addition , the mixture was stirred at the same temperature for 3 hours . after adding 1 ml of methanol the reaction mixture was evaporated in vacuo and extracted with dichloromethane . the extract was washed with 2m hydrochloric acid , 1m sodium carbonate and water successively . the organic layer was then dried over anhydrous sodium sulfate and evaporated in vacuo . the residue was purified by silica gel chromatography ( ethyl acetate : hexane = 1 : 3 ) whereupon 426 mg of the title compound ( vii ) was obtained . [ α ] d - 5 . 5 ° ( c 0 . 9 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 1 . 44 ( m , 2h ), 1 . 56 ( d , 3h , j = 6 . 4 hz ), 2 . 33 ( s , 3h ), 2 . 64 , 2 . 90 ( m , 4h ), 4 . 97 ( d , 1h , j = 2 : 2 hz ), 5 . 04 ( dd , 1h , j = 10 . 2 , 3 . 1 hz ), 5 . 77 ( dd , 1h , j = 7 . 9 hz ), 7 . 14 - 8 . 31 ( m , 35h ). analysis calculated for c 77 h 84 o 21 si : c 67 . 33 , h 6 . 16 ; found : c 67 . 33 ; h 6 . 00 223 mg of compound ( vii ) in a mixture of 8 ml of ethanol and 2 ml of acetic acid was catalytically hydrogenated in the presence of 300 mg of 10 % palladium - carbon at 45 ° c . for 12 hours . after the reaction , insoluble matter was filtered off from the reaction mixture and washed with ethanol . the filtrate was combined with the washing and evaporated in vacuo . the residue was then reacted with 2 ml of acetic anhydride in 3 ml of pyridine in the presence of 5 mg of 4 - dimethylaminopyridine for 10 hours at room temperature with stirring . after adding 1 ml of methanol , the reaction mixture was extracted with dichloromethane and the extract washed with 2m hydrochloric acid , 1m sodium carbonate and water successively . the organic layer was dried over anhydrous sodium sulfate and evaporated in vacuo . the residue was applied on a silica gel column and eluated with a 1 : 3 mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane . 210 mg of the title compound ( viii ) was obtained . [ α ] d - 17 . 5 ° ( c 1 . 0 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 0 . 89 ( m , 2h ), 1 . 57 ( d , 3h , j = 6 . 4 hz ), 2 . 06 - 2 . 42 ( 5s , 15h ), 2 . 56 , 2 . 73 ( 2m , 4h ), 4 . 61 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 1 hz ), 5 . 26 ( dd , 1h , j = 10 . 4 , 3 . 7 hz ), 7 . 16 - 8 . 34 ( m , 20h ). analysis calculated for c 64 h 74 o 25 si : c 60 . 46 ; h 5 . 87 ; found : c 60 . 33 , h 5 . 75 170 mg of compound ( viii ) was dissolved in a mixture of 1 ml of dichloromethane and 2 ml of trifluoroacetic acid , and stirred at room temperature for 2 hours . after the addition of 1 ml of ethyl acetate , the solution was evaporated in vacuo . the residue was applied on a silica gel column and eluated with a 1 : 2 mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane . 144 mg of the title compound ( ix ) was obtained . [ α ] d + 11 . 2 ° ( c 0 . 8 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 1 . 26 ( d , 3h , j = 7 . 1 hz ), 1 . 64 - 2 . 17 ( 5s , 15h ), 2 . 33 , 2 . 53 ( 2m , 4h ), 4 . 11 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 2 hz ), 5 . 22 ( d , 1h , j = 3 . 1 hz ), 5 . 73 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 7 hz ), 7 . 16 - 8 . 10 ( m , 20h ). analysis calculated for c 59 h 62 o 25 : c 60 . 51 ; h 5 . 34 ; found : c 60 . 27 ; h 5 . 08 to a solution of 653 mg of compound ( ix ) in a mixture of 9 ml of dichloromethane and 1 . 8 ml of trichloroacetonitrile was added 41 . 8 μl of 1 of 1 , 8 - diazabicyclo [ 5 . 4 . 0 ]- 7 - undecene . the mixture was stirred at 0 ° c . for 2 hours and then evaporated in vacuo . the residue was applied on a silica gel column and eluated with a 1 : 2 mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane . 700 mg of the title compound ( iii ) was obtained . [ α ] d + 57 ° ( c 1 . 4 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 1 . 40 ( d , 3h , j = 6 . 1 hz ), 1 . 71 - 2 . 17 ( 5s , 15h ), 2 . 37 , 2 . 53 ( 2m , 4h ), 4 . 83 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz ), 5 . 26 ( dd , 1h , j = 3 . 7 , 10 . 4 hz ), 5 . 35 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 9 , 11 . 0 hz ), 5 . 65 ( dd , 1h ), 5 . 75 ( d , 1h ), 6 . 48 ( d , 1h , j = 3 . 7 hz ), 7 . 38 - 8 . 09 ( m , 20h ), 8 . 46 ( s , 1h ). analysis calculated for c 61 h 62 cl 3 no 25 : c 55 . 69 ; h 4 . 75 ; n 1 . 06 ; found : c 55 . 58 ; h 4 . 67 ; n 1 . 09 700 mg of compound ( iii ) produced in example 1 and 363 mg of 2 -( tetradecyl ) hexadecanol ( v ) produced in reference example were dissolved in 8 . 8 ml of dichloromethane . after the addition of 1 . 7 g of molecular sieve ( ms - 4a ), the solution was stirred at room temperature for 6 hours and then cooled at 0 ° c . to this was added 0 . 13 ml of boron trifluoride - ether complex followed by stirring at room temperature for 5 hours . the reaction mixture was filtered to remove insoluble matter which was then washed with dichloromethane . the filtrate was combined with this washing , and washed with 1m sodium carbonate and water successively . the organic layer was dried on anhydrous sodium sulfate and evaporated in vacuo . the residue was applied on a silica gel column and eluated with a 1 : 4 mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane . 585 mg of the title compound was obtained . [ α ] d - 67 . 7 ° ( c 1 . 0 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 0 . 88 - 1 . 43 ( m , 58h ), 1 . 82 - 2 . 15 ( 5s , 15h ), 2 . 34 , 3 . 67 ( 2dd , 2h , j = 9 . 3 hz ), 4 . 37 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 1 hz ), 4 . 79 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 2 hz ), 5 . 22 ( dd , 1h , j = 3 . 8 , 10 . 4 hz ), 5 . 47 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 8 hz ), 5 . 53 ( dd , 1h ), 5 . 72 ( dd , 1h , 7 . 35 - 8 . 13 ( m , 20h ). analysis calculated for c 89 h 122 o 25 : c 67 . 15 ; h 7 . 72 ; found : c 67 . 11 ; h 7 . 67 to a solution of 583 . 5 mg of the product of step ( a ) in 15 ml of ethanol was added 168 mg of hydrazine monoacetate and mixture stirred at room temperature for 1 hour . the reaction mixture was then evaporated in vacuo . the residue was applied on a silica gel column , and eluated with a 1 : 3 mixture of ethyl acetate and hexane . 545 mg of the title compound was obtained . [ α ] d - 24 . 7 ° ( c 1 . 0 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 0 . 85 - 1 . 33 ( m , 58h ), 1 . 59 - 2 . 11 ( 4s , 12h ), 3 . 09 , 3 . 79 ( 2dd , 2h , j = 9 . 3 hz ), 4 . 38 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 7 hz ), 4 . 63 ( bs , 1h ), 4 . 67 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 6 hz ), 5 . 60 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 9 hz ), 7 . 33 - 8 . 15 ( m , 20h ). analysis calculated for c 84 h 116 o 23 : c 67 . 54 ; h 7 . 83 ; found : c 67 . 30 ; h 7 . 53 to a solution of 78 mg of the product of step ( b ) in 1 ml of dmf was added 41 mg of sulfur trioxide - pyridine complex followed by stirring at room temperature for 1 hour . after the addition of 0 . 5 ml of methanol , the reaction mixture was evaporated at 25 ° c . the residue was applied on a silica gel column and eluated with a 20 : 1 mixture of dichloromethane and methanol . 75 mg of the title compound was obtained . [ α ] d - 2 . 2 ° ( c 1 . 0 , chcl 3 ) 1 h - nmr ( cdcl 3 ) δ : 0 . 85 - 1 . 31 ( m , 58h ), 1 . 38 ( d , 3h , j = 6 . 2 hz ), 1 . 74 - 2 . 35 ( 4s , 12h ), 4 . 37 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 7 hz ), 7 . 09 - 8 . 05 ( m , 25h ). to a solution of the product of step ( c ) in a mixture of 2 ml of methanol and 1 ml of thf was added 5 mg of sodium methoxide followed by stirring at room temperature for 24 hours . the reaction mixture was evaporated at 25 ° c . the residue was applied on a column of sephadex lh - 20 and eluated with a 5 : 4 : 0 . 7 mixture of chloroform , methanol and water . 42 mg of the title compound ( iia ) was obtained . [ α ] d - 30 ° ( c 0 . 8 , chcl 3 : meoh = 1 : 1 ) 1 h - nmr ( c 5 d 5 n ) δ : 0 . 85 - 1 . 31 ( m , 58h ), 1 . 54 ( d , 3h , j = 6 . 41 hz ), 5 . 06 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 71 hz ), 5 . 21 ( dd , 1h , j = 3 . 8 , 10 . 1 hz ), 5 . 41 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 3 hz ), 5 . 48 ( d , 1h , j = 6 . 7 hz ). mass spectrum ( m / e ): 989 . 7 ( m + 2h ) analysis calculated for c 48 h 91 sna : c 57 . 01 ; h 9 . 07 ; found : c 56 . 70 ; h 8 . 81 a mixture of 100 wt . parts of compound ( iia ) produced in example 2 , 30 wt . parts of lactose , 20 wt . parts of crystalline cellulose , 5 wt . parts of hydroxypropylmethylcellulose and 20 wt . parts of cmc was thoroughly kneaded with 150 wt . parts of distilled water . the resulting mass was crushed into coarse particles and dried . after the addition of 5 wt . parts of magnesium stearate , the particles were compressed into tablets each having a diameter of 8 mm and a weight of 180 mg . the tablets contain the active ingredient at 100 mg / tablet . 0 . 5 wt . parts of the compound ( iia ) of example 2 and 5 wt . parts of sorbitol were dissolved in distilled water to make 100 wt . parts of a solution . then , the solution was filtered through a membrane filter , packaged in nitrogen gas - filled fused ampoules at 5 ml / ampoule , and steam sterilized at 120 ° c . for 15 minutes . each ampoule contains 25 mg of the compound ( iia ).	2
in order to facilitate understanding of the present invention , reference is made to the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings . the description of the process in conjunction with fig1 is found in non - limiting examples 1 and 2 below . in order to obtain ohmic contact for testing devices having c4 bumps as terminal technology , the oxide layer covering the c4 bumps , which may also be called pads , must be penetrated , and with as little force as possible . if the raised tip of the probe that comes in contact with the c4 pad is as small as possible , a good penetration of the oxide layer on the c4 can be expected . fig2 is an illustration in cross section of a probe pad of the present invention . the probe itself is shown as feature 1 . features 2 are the shoulders surrounding sculpted areas 3 . the probe pad is shown as feature 5 . feature 6 is a bump which provides electrical communication between probe 1 and ceramic space transformer 16 at land 13 , represented in fig7 . features 5 and 6 are aligned through flexible nonconducting substrate 4 , which in the examples is polyimide . a polyimide film found satisfactory is kapton , a trademark of e . i . dupont de nemours and company . feature 6 is typically about 1 - 2 mils in height from feature 4 and about 5 mils in diameter feature 1 is typically about 1mil in height from feature 4 . if all probes are the same height , all the c4 terminal pads will be touched at the same time and a successful test will be performed . this result is achieved and such probes have been fabricated in the present invention using a process in which the probes and the surrounding topography are provided using a single photolithographic mask . an example of one such mask is shown in the optical micrograph of fig3 a and another in the optical micrograph of fig4 a . the inventive process takes advantage of the fact that larger areas of copper exposed to etchant solution etch at a significantly higher rate than smaller areas . by controlling the size and arrangement of the openings exposed a mask and developed in a photosensitive resist , predetermined topographies are formed reproducibly in the underlying copper . the fig3 b optical micrograph is a top view of an array of probe pads made using the mask of fig3 a ; the fig4 b optical micrograph is a top view of an array of probe pads made using the mask of fig4 a . in 3b and 4b , both the probes in the center of the pads and the shoulders of the probe pads , i . e . the prominent areas , are the light areas ; the sculpted areas , i . e . the less prominent areas , are dark . fig5 is a tilted sem which shows in relief one of the probe pads of fig3 b . the probes , created by gray scale etching , are uniform in topography and are surrounded by sculpted areas of a second uniform topography , a number of identical such features being reproduced into an array as seen in part in 3b and in 4b . the tip of the probe at which electrical contact is made during testing is small as possible , and the distance across the top surface of the probe pad from shoulder to shoulder is large , giving an aspect ratio as high as possible . a ratio of about 1 : 4 is satisfactory . etching must be performed over the entire surface of a substrate without damaging the photoresist or undercutting the adhesion of the photoresist to the copper . as further described in the example below , the shelf life of the photoresist between the development of the pattern and the etch process must be sufficiently long to allow for normal delays in the production line . resist adhesion has been optimized in the present invention by adjusting the time interval between resist application and partial curing on one hand , and final curing and exposure of the gray scale pattern on the other hand . attention has also been paid to other factors affecting adhesion , such as selection of the thickness of the resist and use of an adhesion promoter . etching is achieved in a standard etch solution for copper , such as a cupric chloride solution or a ferric chloride solution , which is delivered in a conveyorized spray etching system ( not shown ) followed by thorough rinsing in deionized ( di ) water and drying with forced air . etchant may be delivered to both exposed sides of a substrate for stabilization of a thin , flexible substrate . uniformity is enhanced by etching the moving parts horizontally , with the major surface to be etched facing downward . the novel fixture ( fig6 a and 6b ) prevents damage to the resist - coated tfi ( feature 7 of fig6 a , 6b and 6c ) by holding the tfi in a recess , allowing access of etchant solution to the tfi substrate while maintaining space between the surface of the tfi and the conveyor . plating tape , shown in a view from the top as feature 8 in fig6 a , normally holds the tfi in place in the fixture on four sides rather than just the two shown . fig6 b shows the recessed areas as features 9a and 9b in a cross - sectional side view . the frame , which can also be referred to as the carrier , fig6 feature 10 , is comprised of a suitable nonconducting polymer . dimensions on the fig6 are in inches for the fixture shown as an example . the substrate 7 , also referred to herein as tfi or 4 - up , is 4 . 875 × 4 . 5 &# 34 ;, the recess 9a being 6 × 6 × 0 . 075 &# 34 ; and the recess 9b narrowing to 5 × 5 × 0 . 15 . a lip 20 , about 0 . 25 &# 34 ; wide extends around the periphery separating 9a and 9b . copper on both the bump side ( fig2 feature 6 ) and the gray scale probe side fig2 feature 5 ) are coated with a layer of nickel followed by a layer of gold , about 100 microinches each ( not shown ). the nickel serves as a barrier to interdiffusion of copper and gold and provides a mechanical benefit during use of the probe . for the bump plating process , which is prior to the gray scale etching , copper film fig1 e , feature 15 serves as an electrical commoning layer . the probes are gray scale etched , then plated in similar fashion . in this instance a commoning layer of copper , about 1 . 2 microns thick ( not shown ) is deposited over the gold plated bumps . the commoning layer is then covered with a layer of resist to prevent it from being plated during nickel and gold coating of the gray scale pads . following this last plating step , the resist is removed from the bump side and the commoning layer is etched away . gold on the surfaces of the bumps and gray scale pads protect these features from the copper etchant during removal of the commoning layer . at this point the probes are ready to be used in testing . fig7 shows an array of c4 bumps 12 on a silicon wafer 11 during contact . gray scale - etched probes 1 were positioned in alignment on the c4s 12 such that the probe tip 1 will contact the c4 12 at or near its center . bumps 6 are in contact with leads 13 , which are ultimately connected to a space transformer 16 . the probes 1 penetrate the oxide layer present on the surface of the c4s 12 , which are typically comprised of solder , such that when the testing is completed and the array of probes is separated from the c4s , a residual indent mark is left at or near the center of the c4s , as shown in the fig8 sem , which is a top view of c4s after testing , magnified 100x . probes provided by the present invention typically have a useful life of about 20 to about 30 wafers before requiring cleaning for reuse , and can be used to test devices with switching speeds of about 150 to about 800 mhz . the short , rigid probe made by the process of the present invention maintains sufficiently low impedance for testing these higher frequency devices . turning to fig1 the tfi probe fabrication process begins with a sheet of polyimide clad on one side with copper . fig1 a shows the polyimide ( pi ) 4 over copper 15 . the copper / kapton laminate is available in a thickness of 1 / 2 , 1 , 2 , 3 and 5 mils . a product with excellent bond strength was obtained from fortin industries ( westinghouse ) in sylmar , calif . one - mil polyimide ( kapton ) clad with 3 / 4 oz . copper is satisfactory . the copper 15 surface is cleaned . the cleaning procedure for copper before lithography and plating is : a preliminary rinse in di h2o , a 30 sec . rinse in ammonium persulfate solution of 120 gms / l , a 2 minute rinse in di h2o , a 15 sec . rinse in 25 % h2o4 , and a final 2 min . rinse in di h2o . after cleaning , the copper is coated with resist ( not shown ) in which alignment marks are optically exposed by uv light and developed , the copper in the developed areas is etched away ( fig1 b , 17 ) and the remaining resist ( not shown ) is stripped . at this point the alignment window ( fig1 b , 18 ) is seen . the resist used was shipley 1813j , spun on at 1500 rpm for 2 minutes , soft baked at about 85 to about 95 degrees c for about 45 minutes , exposed at about 50 to about 60 mj and developed in microposit 319mf for about 30 to about 45 seconds . no hard bake is performed , i . e . the resist is not completely cured . an excimer laser is then used to ablate vias ( fig1 c , 19 ) in the pi ( fig1 a , 4 ) where copper bumps ( fig1 e , 6 ) will be required . molybdenum contact masks 2 mils thick , fabricated to order at towne labs , somerville n . j ., were used to mask the laser ablation of the vias ( fig1 c , 19 ), but the alignment marks ( fig1 d , 14 ) were created by partial ablation . a stationary beam from a lambda physik lpx - 315 cc laser was used to scan the substrate through a one meter cylindrical lens to obtain a fluence of 1 . 6 j / cm2 . the wavelength was 0 . 248 microns , 0 . 8 j / pulse , 8 pulse / second . at this point it is necessary to strip resist ( not shown ) in acetone and clean away the residue in the ablated vias in a reactive ion etcher ( rie ). a plasma - therm rie is operated at 200 mtorr o2 + 2 % cf4 at 0 . 25 w / cm2 , f = 13 . 5 mhz . etch rate under these conditions is about 1500 a / min . removal of residue in the vias ensures a strong adhesion in subsequent metallization of the vias . stycast 1266 epoxy obtained from emerson and cuming of woburn , mass . was used to mount in a stainless steel ring ( not shown ) the substrate to be treated by rie . this epoxy was found to withstand the process without contaminating tools . 3m scotch brand 2 - 0300 plating tape is applied to the copper side of the copper / kapton laminate prior to electroplating the vias 19 . for large substrates a spin - on resist az 4620 from hoechest celanese in somerville n . j . was found to withstand the plating bath . next copper is electroplated into the vias 19 , and overplated up to about 2 mils to form bumps ( fig1 e , 6 ). an electroplating bath of the following composition per liter of di water was found to be satisfactory : 60 grams h2o4 ( 5h2o ); 75 grams h2o4 ; 75 ppm cl as hcl ; 5 ml cupracid hs leveling agent ; 5 ml cupracid brightener . the leveling agent and brightener were obtained from chemcut corp . of state college , pa . the bath is replenished by adding 0 . 5 ml additional of leveler and of brightener per amp - hour . now attention is turned away from the bump side to the side on which probes 1 and the rest of the desired topography is to be created ( fig1 g ). plating tape is removed and the resist is applied and soft baked . using a mask such as the one in fig3 a or 4a , careful alignment is effected so that the bumps 6 will substantially align with the probes 1 to be gray scale etched , the predetermined result of which is shown in fig1 g . the bumps 6 are protected with resist as well . the tfi is placed in the fixture shown in fig6 and is gray scale etched . resist is removed in acetone from the bumps after which protective metallurgy ( not shown ) is applied to the bumps 6 and the probe pads 5 . the protective metallurgy may be ni coated with au , or rh or cr . to avoid the use of cyanide complexed plating solutions , plating pens obtained from hunter products of bridgewater , n . j . can be used to coat ni , au and rh . alternatively , au immersion plating baths are available from occidental chemical corp . of nutley n . j . chrome can be sputter deposited or evaporated through a mask . a 10 &# 34 ;× 15 &# 34 ; panel of 25 microns thick polyimide ( fig1 a , 4 ) is coated with 25 microns of copper ( fig1 a , 15 ) on one major surface . taller probes can be fabricated if a thicker coating of copper is used as a starting point . copper is plated into blind vias ( fig1 c , 19 ), which are about 85 microns in diameter , such that the copper fills the vias and forms a bump ( fig1 e , 6 ) on each , having a height of about 1 - 2 mil above the surface of the polyimide and a diameter at the base of the bump of about 125 microns . the copper bumps are plated with about 2 . 5 microns of nickel followed by about 2 . 5 microns of gold ( not shown ). the panel includes 24 partially fabricated thin flexible interposer probes arranged in six groups such that each group contains four probes s ( 4 - up ). tooling holes are punched into the two ends of the panel along the 10 inch dimension and the panel is placed into a frame . the frame and panel are placed for two minutes into k2 solution , a highly alkaline cleaning solution from penwalt corporation . next is sequential rinsing in di water for one minute in each of two tanks , followed by exposure to a solution of sodium persulfate and two more di water rinses , then immersion for about 30 seconds in a solution of 8 % hydrochloric acid , two di water rinses of about one minute each , about 20 seconds in a solution of sodium carbonate , two more one minute di water rinses for about one minute each , immersion in benzotriazole alkaline cleaner for 1 . 5 minutes , two di water rinses of 1 minute each , and drying for 15 minutes at 130 degrees c . at this point the panel is cut into six 4 - ups , each 4 - up having dimensions of roughly 4 . 7 &# 34 ;× 4 . 7 &# 34 ; ( fig6 c ). a convection oven preheated to 90 degrees c is allowed to stabilize for 30 minutes . fifty grams of photoresist , an ibm formulation distributed by microchem corporation as sjr5440 , is placed in a tared bottle with 8 grams of propylene glycol methyl ether acetate obtained from aldrich chemical and the two are mixed well by shaking . on a spin coater , a piece of filter paper is placed on a vacuum chuck , a 4 - up is centered on the chuck such that the bump side is facing up , and vacuum is applied . the sjr5440 resist mixture is pipetted onto each quadrant of the 4 - up and a drop of resist about 25 mm in diameter is placed in the center of the substrate . each 4 - up substrate is spun for 30 seconds at 2500 rpm . the coated substrate is removed from the chuck , placed on a copper sheet and air dried in an exhausted fume hood for a minimum of 15 minutes . the substrates are then placed for a minimum of 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 90 degrees c . the substrates are then removed from the oven and placed under the hood to cool for 20 minutes at room temperature . using the spin coater , the same procedure is used to coat the copper side of each 4 - up . for this side , resist is applied evenly to cover about 2 / 3 of the substrate surface at the center . after spinning , the substrate is coated as outlined above , the substrate is removed from the chuck and placed on a copper sheet to air dry at room temperature for an hour ( about 1 to about 4 hours ). the substrates are again placed in the oven for about 10 minutes at 90 degrees c ., after which they are removed from the oven and placed under the hood to cool at room temperature . the final resist thickness on each side of the substrate is about 3 to 4 microns . it has been observed that resist adhesion is better for thicker than for thinner films . at this point the substrates are placed in an opaque box for a minimum of 12 hours ( about 12 to about 72 hours ) before proceeding to the next step . substrates are placed in a fixture for photolithographic exposure in uv light . the substrate resides on a pliant pad that is porous enough to allow the substrate to be held in place by vacuum . the mask is aligned to the substrate , which is copper side up . the resist coating the copper substrate is exposed through the mask at 200 mj per square centimeter . developer solution is prepared by diluting 0 . 5 n potassium hydroxide 1 : 1 with di water . the resulting solution is maintained at 22 +/- 2 degrees c . the substrate is immersed in the solution for about 50 seconds using slight agitation , then rinsed for about 30 seconds in overflowing di water . the substrate is dried in a stream of nitrogen . the substrate is taped along four edges , stretching it taut into the fixture shown in fig6 a , and is held in the fixture in such a way that the surfaces of the substrate are recessed with respect to the surface of the fixture ( fig6 b ), preventing contact of the substrate surfaces with the rollers of the conveyorized etcher and avoiding chipping and scratching of the photoresist . the etching system is designed such that the frame is transported using pinch rollers that contact only the fixture , not the substrates . the fixture is then placed in a conveyorized oscillating spray etching system such that the imaged side of the photoresist is facing down . both sides of the substrate are exposed to etchant to prevent entrapment of solution behind the substrate . the etchant solution is a mixture of cupric chloride , 1 . 2 +/- 0 . 03 n hydrochloric acid and water maintained at 130 +/- 2 degrees f . the redox level is 515 - 600 mvolts . the specific gravity of the etchant is 1 . 26 - 1 . 28 , baume reading at 30 +/- 1 baume . etchant is dispensed through oscillating nozzles at a pressure of about 16 psi directed at the substrate . ( etching apparatus is not shown .) nominal conveyor speed is 46 in ./ min . the length of the etching zone is about 48 inches . etching is followed by a 1 . 0 n hydrochloric acid rinse , a water rinse and drying in a stream of air . to remove the photoresist , both sides of the substrate are exposed to uv light at 400 mj per square centimeter , the substrate is immersed in 0 . 25 n sodium hydroxide at room temperature for about two minutes , rinsed in cascading di water for about one minute and dried in a stream of air . a layer of copper about 1 . 2 microns thick ( not shown ) is sputter deposited onto the gold coated bumps on each substrate . this serves to electrically common all of the bumps , and therefore the gray scale etched probe pads , for electrolytic plating of nickel and gold . a dry film photoresist 3 mils thick ( not shown ) is placed over this sputtered surface except at the four comers where electrical contact to the sputtered commoning layer will be required . nickel and then gold , about 2 . 5 microns each ( not shown ), are next plated . the photoresist is then stripped in 0 . 25 n naoh at room temperature and the commoning layer is etched in 0 . 5 n ammonium persulfate solution at room temperature . while the invention has been described in conjunction with specific embodiments , many modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing information . for example the description has focussed on array probing of c4 pads . those skilled in the art could apply the teachings to peripheral pads as well . accordingly , it is intended that the present invention embrace all such modifications as fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims .	6
fig1 pictorially illustrates the novel extension roof ladder . shown therein in an extension ladder with three sections . sections 1 and 2 are conventional extension ladder sections for use at the side of a building 4 . conventional extension ladder section 1 may be provided with a &# 34 ; foot &# 34 ; connected to the ground end of section 1 in order to provide the ladder with a stable or flat grounding on hard surfaces . alternatively , if the ladder is used on an earth surface , a spike arrangement 83 may be provided as shown on fig1 . section 2 is raised with respect to section 1 by a conventional rope and pulley system ( not illustrated ). such a raising system conventionally employs a rope attached near the bottom of section 2 and passing around a pulley attached near the top of section 2 and down toward the bottom of section 2 . by pulling down on the rope , the force is redirected in an upward direction and section 2 slides in an upward direction with respect to section 1 . the roof ladder section 3 is similarly raised with respect to section 1 . the roof ladder section 3 is similarly raised with respect to section 2 . the roof ladder section 3 is shown in place on top of roof 5 . roof ladder section 3 is shown as having an articulated lower subsection 7 in place on the near side of the roof 5 and a rigid subsection 8 in place on the far side of the roof 5 . rigid subsection 8 is shown angularly connected to articulated subsection 7 at the ridge 6 of the roof 5 . the articulated subsection is shown extending over and down from the eave 9 of the roof 5 and is secured to the conventional ladder section 2 . section 2 is secured in place with respect to section 1 by means of hooks 10 attached near the bottom of section 2 which can be rotated into place over a rung of section 1 . likewise , hooks 18 are provided near the bottom of section 3 to provide support when placed over a rung of section 2 . in a conventional extension ladder , section 2 is advantageously of a different width than section 1 in order that it may easily slide upon section 1 . fig1 shows section 2 having a shorter rung width than that of section 1 . the side rails 11 of section 2 are of a width to fit between side rails 12 of section 1 thereby allowing section 2 to easily slide upon section 1 when it is being erected by its rope and pulley system . similarly , side rails 13 of roof ladder section 7 are of a different width ( shown wider ) than side rails 11 of ladder section 11 so that sliding is facilitated when roof ladder 7 is erected onto the roof . fig2 shows a side view of the roof ladder section 3 in place on a gabled roof . the rigid upper subsection 8 is shown extending over the far side of the roof from which it is erected . upper subsection 8 is shown angularly rotated on its hinges 20 which connects it with the articulated lower subsection 7 . upper subsection 8 may advantageously be approximately 6 to 8 feet in length . although the rigid subsection 8 is shown as the only subsection extending beyond the ridge 6 , one or more of the articulated subsections i . e ., component subsection 22 , may also extend pass the ridge of the roof , allowing the user of the ladder to conveniently control the ladder extent for various sizes of roofs . fig2 shows component articulated sections 23 , 24 , 25 extending past the eaves of the roof and attached to conventional extension ladder section 2 . articulated section 25 is angularly rotated about its hinges 29 connected to section 26 at the eave of the roof 9 . each of the component sections ( e . g ., 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 . . . ) advantageously has but one rung connected to side rails hinged as shown to an adjacent component section . with but one rung for each component section , the component sections are approximately one to two feet in length . it is possible to construct the component sections having more than one rung thereby increasing component section length , but shorter section length is preferred in order to better approximate the near roof distance from ridge 6 to eaves 9 . also shown on fig2 is rope 30 attached in eyelet 31 near the top of rigid sections 8 . although shown free of tension , rope 30 when placed under tension , causes rigid subsection 8 to become linearly aligned with articulated subsection 7 , thereby facilitating ladder erection on the roof . the ladder can be made of wood ; but , because of the weight of wood , light metals or metal alloys are preferred , since the ladder must be raised and slid along and over the roof while the user is perched on conventional ladder section 2 . fig3 illustrates a construction arrangement which allows ladder sections 1 , 2 and 3 to be slideably attached to one another . top section 3 is slidably attached to middle section 2 by complimentary grooves 300 , 301 in the side rails of section 3 and flanges 400 , 401 in the side rails of section 2 . bottom section 1 is a slidably attached to middle section 2 by complimentary grooves 100 , 101 in the side rails of section 1 and flanges 402 , 403 in the side rails of section 2 . flanges 404 and 405 in the side rails of middle section 2 act as spacer elements separating upper ladder section 3 and lower ladder section 1 . enough space is provided by spacer elements 404 and 405 to allow passage of hinges 20 attached to the side rails of upper ladder section 3 to clear the side rails of lower ladder section 1 during relative movement of the upper 3 and lower 1 ladder sections . the hinges 20 and center flanges 404 and 405 are placed so that hinges 20 clear center flanges 404 and 405 during relative movement of the upper 1 and middle 2 ladder sections . the erection of the roof ladder is shown in fig4 , 6 and 7 . fig4 shows sections 1 , 2 , and 3 approximately overlapping one another , the condition appropriate for storage of the ladder . fig5 shows conventional extension ladder section 2 raised to a position near the top of the building just under the eave 9 . the rope is shown under tension thereby keeping rigid subsection 8 in a linear relationship with the articulated subsection 7 . rope 40 is used in a rope and pulley system to raise section 3 as it slides upon section 2 . rope 40 passes around pulley 41 and is attached near the bottom of section 3 at point 42 . fig6 shows section 3 at the point where the bottom end of rigid subsection 8 is aligned with the ridge 6 of the roof . rope 30 keeps rigid subsection 8 in a linear relationship with articulated subsection 7 . fig7 shows rigid subsection 8 angularly rotated on its hinge 20 at the roof ridge 6 and resting on the far side of the roof . by slowly releasing the tension on rope 30 , the user can control the lowering of rigid subsection 8 onto the far side of the roof 5 . rigid subsection 8 , in place on the far side of the roof , with articulated subsection 7 in place on the near side of the roof , assures that the ladder will be a steady platform for the user to traverse up and down the roof . the ladder is brought down by reversing the erection steps described above . fig8 shows a ridge support attachment 86 which may be attached to the top ends of upper ladder section 3 for advantageous use when the upper ladder section 3 extends only to the near side of the roof . for this use , ridge support attachment 86 extends over the ridge 6 of the roof and provides support for upper ladder section 3 , thereby preventing it from sliding down the near side of the roof .	4
the following description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use the invention and sets forth the best modes contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention . various modifications , however , will remain readily apparent to those skilled in the art , since the generic principles of the present invention have been defined herein specifically to provide a calibrated air intake tract having air infusion insert . the present invention can best be understood by initial consideration of fig3 . fig3 is a preferred embodiment of a combustion - tuning cold air intake test system 40 for use with the method of the present invention . the test system 40 is designed to provide the inventor with the necessary equipment to execute the cold air intake tuning method of the present invention , the completion of which will provide the inventor with the necessary information to produce production - quality , combustion - tuned cold air intake systems for each vehicle and / or model tested using the method . the system 40 is similar to a conventional cold air intake system in that it has a cone filter 36 and turbo hose connectors 34 for attaching the system 40 to a conventional internal combustion engine . rather than having a simple mandrel - bent piping system , however , the piping of the test system 40 can be modified quickly in the course of the testing process so that the desired combustion performance is attained . there is a distal intake pipe section 42 making up the first leg of the system 40 . there is a proximal intake pipe section 44 making up the final leg of the system 40 . interconnecting the two sections 42 and 44 is the mass airflow sensor ( mafs ) tract 46 . the mafs tract 46 is a customized pipe section selected from a group of tracts constructed for the purpose of being used in the test system 40 . the oem mafs 26 ( for the vehicle that the system testing is for ) is attached to the tract 46 so that the airflow through the system 40 is sampled . each mafs tract 46 has flanged 48 ends so that tracts 46 can be installed and removed without disassembling the other components of the test system 40 . the mafs tract 46 defines an inner ( flowpath ) diameter of d m . this diameter may be larger than , or smaller than d i , which is the diameter of the distal and proximal sections 42 and 44 , depending upon the test results , as will be discussed in connection with fig4 . what is critical to understand is that the configuration of the distal and proximal intake pipe sections 42 and 44 will not change during the testing process . these sections will be designed to fit within the profile of the engine compartment of the vehicle undergoing design testing , with a standardized gap left between the flanges 48 so that standard - sized mafs tracts 46 can then be exchanged to fill this gap . the optimum internal diameter of the mafs tract 46 will be determined by the testing process of fig4 . for the purposes of fig4 , the “ test intake tract system ” refers to the test system 40 minus the mafs tract 46 . fig4 is a flowchart depicting the preferred combustion tuning method 50 for mass airflow segment . what is very unique to this method is that the intake air tract ( at least the diameter of that portion in the vicinity of the mafs ) is being optimized by testing being done on the exhaust effluent stream . the idea is that if the intake can be “ tuned ” until the content of the exhaust effluent stream very nearly matches the content of this stream with the original equipment manufacturer intake air tract installed . first , the exhaust effluent stream is tested having the oem intake air system installed 100 ( and recorded ). next , the oem intake tract is removed 102 and the test intake tract 104 is installed in place of the oem system . the step x = 1 106 serves to increment the test set as the method iterates . next , a selected mafs tract segment is installed in the test system 108 . here , test ( 1 ) refers to a mafs tract segment having an internal diameter of d ( 1 ) is installed in the system . next , test ( 1 ) is run by running the engine and testing the exhaust effluent stream content 110 . the results of test ( 1 ) are compared to the results of test ( 0 ) 112 . if the effluent content is substantially the same for test ( 1 ) as were the results of test ( 0 ) 114 , then the final or optimum mafs tract segment diameter is determined to be d ( 1 ) for this particular powerplant . if the exhaust stream content of test ( 1 ) is not substantially the same as it was for test ( 0 ) 118 , then after incrementing x to set up the next test 120 , the query of whether test ( x ) results indicated that the engine was running too lean or too rich . if the results indicate that mafs ( 1 ) caused excessively lean conditions 122 , then the next mafs will be chosen so that its diameter is smaller than the diameter of the mafs used in test ( 1 ) 124 . if the results indicate that mafs ( 1 ) caused excessively rich conditions 126 , then the next mafs will be chosen so that its diameter is larger than the diameter of the mafs used in test ( 1 ) 128 . once the new diameter is determined ( as being larger or smaller than for the previous test ), step 108 and beyond are executed again using mafs ( 2 ) ( in this case ), having the appropriate diameter as determined by the exhaust effluent stream contents . as discussed earlier , once the original oem exhaust performance is nearly duplicated , the test is concluded and the internal diameter of the mafs tract segment has been optimized 116 . with the optimized mafs tract segment installed , the “ check engine ” lights will no longer be received because the airflow , as determined by the mafs in the mafs tract segment having the optimized diameter ( as well as the other emissions sensors in the vehicle ) will conclude that oem conditions are being maintained . since the aforementioned testing method can tend to consume a large amount of time and resources , a second version of this test method was developed ; fig5 depicts this alternate method . fig5 is a flowchart depicting a second preferred method for combustion tuning the mass airflow segment . preliminarily ( not shown here ), the system is tested for exhaust gas emissions contents so that a final comparison can be made ( see step 216 ). while this step is not mandatory , it does confirm the results achieved in the “ bench ” testing approach described herein below . first , 200 , the voltage output ( or other form of signal output ) of the mafs is tested and recorded for the oem intake system . next , the oem intake tract is removed from the engine 202 . the test intake tract system is then installed 204 on the ic engine . for test ( 1 ), the test ( 1 ) mafs tract segment having d ( 1 ) is installed in the test tract 208 . the engine is started and the voltage ( or other format ) signal output of the mafs is observed and recorded 210 . the signal output results for test ( 1 ) are compared with the signal output results of the baseline test ( 0 ). if they are unacceptably different 218 , then the mafs tract segment will be exchanged with another segment having a diameter that is either greater or smaller than the test ( 1 ) segment ( 124 or 128 ), and the test 208 - 212 is re - run . these tests are run until such time as the mafs signal output matches ( or nearly ) the baseline mafs signal output results 214 . in order to assure a correct configuration , the system is still combustion tested , namely , 216 the exhaust effluent is re - tested with the optimized mafs tract segment installed ( i . e . the segment having the configuration dictated by the “ bench ” testing ), and compared to the baseline exhaust gas test results obtained when the system was first profiled prior to executing step 204 . by running the initial calibrations on the system through bench testing of voltage output , the system can be reconfigured even more quickly than before ( because the effluent testing tends to be much more time consuming ), the optimized test tract configuration can be determined much more quickly than with the method of fig4 . to be safe , however , the final test of fig4 is still run to confirm the optimization of the combustion as well . it has been noticed that certain intake and engine setups will not reach optimal power improvements and the other benefits by applying the empirically - based testing of the methods of either fig4 or 5 . exemplary vehicles are late model ( as of this writing ) nissan ™ vehicles . in these vehicles , the implementation of a restricted - diameter mafs section is not insufficient , and the fuel trim level is not acceptable 217 . the details of the importance of fuel trim and the adjustments to the method of fig5 are discussed below in connection with fig9 . regarding fig4 and 5 , fig6 shows the result of the aforementioned testing of the methods of these drawing figures . fig6 is a schematic view of a combustion - tuned cold air intake system 60 produced by the method of the present invention . what has changed here , as compared with the system of fig3 is that the test mafs segment no longer exists . here , the piping is in one piece — defined by the distal intake pipe portion 62 and the proximal intake pipe portion 64 interconnected by the mafs pipe portion 66 . as should be apparent , the mafs pipe portion 66 has an internal diameter d m that was determined through the testing discussed above in connection with fig4 to be the optimum diameter for this particular system 60 . since the distal intake pipe portion 62 and the proximal intake pipe portion 64 essentially duplicate the shape and parameters of the distal and proximal intake pipe sections 42 and 44 , there should be no variation in performance aspects between the test system and this final production system 60 . finally , if we turn now to fig7 , we can examine the specifics of the test section . fig7 is a perspective view of a mass airflow sensor tract 46 used in the method of the present invention . the tract 46 has a generally tubular center section 68 terminating in flanges 48 for connection to the test tract system . the airflow path 70 has an internal diameter d m that is known — for the purposes of testing according to the claimed method , a group or series of tracts 46 , each having a unique d m must are first created in order to provide for the necessary responsiveness to test results . the wall of the tubular section 68 has an mafs aperture 72 formed in its side , the perimeter of which is defined by a flange 74 for attaching the oem mafs thereto . since there is no standardized mafs design that all oems use , there must be a variety of tracts 46 having the same flange / aperture configuration , but for different internal diameters d m . once the groups of tracts 46 are assembled , testing can be conducted on a wide variety of internal combustion power systems so that the final system design can be ascertained without risk . once the aforementioned calibration method is complete and a particular vehicle intake tract has been “ tuned ,” a complete intake tract having a “ tuned ” mafs pipe portion can be created . such a pipe portion is depicted in fig8 . fig8 is a perspective view of the mafs pipe portion 66 of the intake system of fig6 . while d m may be larger than d i , the typical case is as depicted here . the distal intake pipe portion 62 is defined by a diameter d i . the intake pipe then tapers down at the first neck portion 80 a to d m , which is carried continuously through the mafs pipe portion 66 . at the second neck portion 80 b , the pipe diameter expands again to d i , where it remains through the remainder of the intake tract . the mafs mounting flange 74 is positioned on the side of the pipe within the mafs pipe portion 66 , surrounding the mafs aperture 72 formed within it . the first and second neck portions 80 a , 80 b are formed seamlessly within the intake piping . since the neck portions 80 a , 80 b are formed in the continuous pipe , rather being made from welded pieces into the tract , the inner surface of the entire intake tract is smooth . the smooth interior surface inhibits turbulent flow within the tract , thereby providing smooth , predictable intake air flow and consistent horsepower increases . fig9 is a modification to the flowchart depicted above in fig5 . as discussed above in connection with fig5 , it has been determined that some vehicles do not respond favorably to the tuning methods of fig4 and 5 . although an optimal diameter for the mafs section of intake piping can be determined , there is very little gain in horsepower . it is believed that this phenomena is related to the fuel trim controls in the engine control computer . fuel trim is a term that refers to the adjustment of feedback signals emanating in a variety of engine combustion sensors . the purpose of fuel trim is to adjust fuel to air mixture so that the desired levels are maintained for the changing running conditions of an internal combustion engine . there are two types of fuel trim — short range and long range . short term fuel trim is the adjustment of feedback signals for conditions that are only temporary in nature . the settings for short term fuel trim are generally re - zeroed in between engine starts . long term fuel trim is the adjustment of the signals to compensate for persistent conditions ( conditions that exhibit their change over a prolonged period of time ), such as dirty fuel injectors or other vehicle - to - vehicle differences . long term fuel trim settings are maintained between starts . fuel trim is expressed as a percentage , and is typically calculated by considering numerous sensor values , including front o2 sensors , intake air temperature / pressure ( or mafs reading ), engine temperature , anti - knock sensors , engine load , throttle position and change thereof , and even battery voltage . once it is determined that the methods of fig4 or 5 are insufficient to overcome conditions in the fuel trim level of the emissions control system of a particular engine , an air infusion insert is inserted into the mafs section for the latest test 219 . it is believed that the air infusion insert somehow conditions the air flow within the mafs section of piping so that the fuel trim computation compensates in a way the increases available horsepower . several exemplary systems so modified were able to add at least ten horsepower to the engine &# 39 ; s output . the diameter and location of the air infusion insert can also effect the engine performance , so these conditions are preferably altered and the system retested 221 until the optimum size and location of insert is determined . fig1 introduces the technical details of the air infusion insert . fig1 is a cross - section , along section a - a of fig8 , of the mafs section 66 a of the present invention further including examples of a preferred air infusion insert . the mafs section depicted here is identified as 66 a to denote that it is a modified version of the section shown in fig8 . the modification involves the addition of the air infusion insert 84 within the inner chamber of the mafs section 66 a . in this depiction , the insert 84 is shown at ninety degree separation from the mafs flange 74 and mafs aperture 72 . the insert 84 may also be positioned in virtually any other sidewall location ( see examples 86 ) around the circumference of the inner wall 82 of the mafs section 66 a in order to provide the optimum performance result . testing has revealed that the diameter of the insert 84 is to be chosen from a group of diameters , including ½ inch , ⅝ inch ¾ inch and ⅞ inch . other diameters ( smaller than the diameter of the mafs section 66 a ) would likely be feasible , however , diminishing return is expected for very small incremental changes in diameter . fig1 gives another view of the insert . fig1 is a partial cutaway perspective view of the mafs section 66 a of fig1 . as shown here , the insert 84 is defined by a first open end 88 a , a second open end 88 b and a main tubular middle section . its length is equal to or less than the overall length of the mafs section 66 a . what is critical is that the insert is oriented along the same longitudinal flow path as the mafs section 66 a , so that the air flowing through the intake tract is not disturbed by its presence . those skilled in the art will appreciate that various adaptations and modifications of the just - described preferred embodiment can be configured without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention . therefore , it is to be understood that , within the scope of the appended claims , the invention may be practiced other than as specifically described herein .	5
as used herein , the term “ composition ” refers to any composition such as a pharmaceutical composition comprising , as an active ingredient , the molecule or molecules according to the present invention and , to the extent desired , the presence of suitable excipients known to those skilled in the art . the compositions may thus be administered in the form of any suitable composition as detailed below by any suitable method of administration within the knowledge of those skilled in the art . the preferred route of administration is parenterally . in parenteral administration , the compositions of this invention will be formulated in a unit dosage injectable form such as a solution , suspension or emulsion , in association with a pharmaceutically acceptable excipient . such excipients are inherently nontoxic and non - therapeutic . examples of such excipients are saline , ringer &# 39 ; s solution , dextrose solution and hank &# 39 ; s solution . nonaqueous excipients such as fixed oils and ethyl oleate may also be used . a preferred excipient is 5 % dextrose in saline . the excipient may contain minor amounts of additives such as substances that enhance isotonicity and chemical stability , including buffers and preservatives . the isolated functional molecules of the invention thus obtained are administered at a concentration that is therapeutically effective to prevent allograft rejection , gvhd , allergy and autoimmune diseases . the dosage and mode of administration will depend on the individual . generally , the compositions are administered so that the isolated functional protein / molecule ( s ) is given at a dose between 1 mg / kg and 10 mg / kg , more preferably between 10 mg / kg and 5 mg / kg , most preferably between 0 . 1 and 2 mg / kg . preferably , it is given as a bolus dose . continuous short time infusion ( during 30 minutes ) may also be used . the compositions comprising the isolated functional protein / molecule ( s ) according to the invention may be infused at a dose between 5 and 20 mg / kg / minute , more preferably between 7 and 15 mg / kg / minute . the “ therapeutically effective amount ” of the isolated functional protein according to the invention needed in a specific case , should be determined as being the amount sufficient to cure the patient in need of treatment , or to at least partially arrest the disease and its complications . the amount effective for such use will depend on the severity of the disease and the general state of the patient &# 39 ; s health . single or multiple administrations may be required depending on the dosage and frequency as required and tolerated by the patient . in the context of this description the terms “ molecules ”, “ proteins ” and “ compounds ” are interchangeable unless usage indicates to the contrary . in order to further disclose the current invention a more detailed explanation is given hereunder . synergistic effects of leptin and forskolin or b - ngf on pc12 cells in order to study leptin receptor signaling in a neuro - endocrine - related cell type , we transiently transfected pc12 cells with expression vectors for the long or the short isoform of the mouse leptin receptor ( pmet7 - nlrlo and pmet7 - mlrsh respectively ) and monitored gene induction by leptin . the pc12 cell line was established from a transplantable rat adrenal pheochromocytoma and is frequently used as a model system for differentiation of neuronal cells . stimulation with recombinant rat b - nerve growth factor ( bb - ngf ) leads to a growth arrest and the formation of dendritic processes and expression of neuronal markers . binding studies using a mouse leptin - seap fusion protein , and rt - pcr analysis showed that neither undifferentiated nor differentiated pc12 cells express leptin receptors . to determine leptin responsiveness , different reporter gene constructs were developed , based on the observation that stimulation of the leptin receptor leads to changes in the expression of a variety of neuropeptides , including npy and pomc . a first reporter construct contains a 500 bp fragment of the rat neuropeptide y ( rnpy ) promoter sequence coupled to the luciferase gene ( pgl3 - rnpyluc ). [ 0057 ] fig1 portion a , shows that leptin stimulation of pc12 cells co - transfected with the rnpy reporter construct and pmet7 - mlrlo but not with pmet7 - lrsh led to a moderate stimulation of luciferase activity . however , co - stimulation in the former case with forskolin , a stimulator of adenylate cyclase , showed an up to 14 - fold enhanced reporter activity . optimal co - stimulatory conditions were determined as 100 ng / ml leptin and 10 μm forskolin ( fig1 portion b ). this effect was optimal approximately 72 hours post stimulation . leptin responsiveness in pc12 cells was further investigated using a clone stably expressing the long isoform of the mouse leptin receptor ( pc12 - lr8 , see below ). after transfection of pc12 - lr8 with a reporter construct based on the human pomc ( proopiomelanocortin ) promoter ( pgl3 - pomcluc ) ( fig1 portion c ), or a reporter construct based on the rat pancreatitis associated protein i promoter ( see below ) ( fig1 portion d ), leptin induced luciferase activity was measured . administration of b - ngf ( 1 ng / ml ) mimicked for both reporter constructs the co - stimulatory action of forskolin . the b - ngf and forskolin effects appeared to be additive in this clone ( fig1 portions c and d ). to search for genes regulated by leptin in the pc12 cell line , a rda ( representational difference analysis ) experiment was performed using a modification of the original method ( hubank and schatz , 1994 ). using this procedure , it is possible to clone amplicons corresponding to transcripts from leptin - forskolin co - stimulated pc12 cells , transiently transfected with pmet7 - mlrlo . after three rounds of subtraction / amplification , selectively amplified bands were purified and subcloned in the pcdna3 or pcr - blunt vector ( invitrogen ). subsequent dna sequencing revealed that a strongly induced transcript encoded the rat pancreatitis associated protein i ( rpap i ). based on this observation , a simple one - tube rt - pcr based procedure was set up to select for pc12 subclones , stably expressing the leptin receptor long isoform ( fig2 portion a ). one stable clone , pc12 - lr8 , was chosen for further experiments ( fig2 portion b ). individual inserts from the cloned amplicon collection were radiolabeled and leptin - dependent gene regulation was verified and studied in more detail by northern blot analysis on the pc12 - lr8 cell line . a total of 11 leptin - regulated genes were identified , as shown in table 1 . only up - regulated genes were observed ; a parallel experiment selecting for leptin - induced down - modulation of gene expression did not yield any amplicons . interestingly , several of the identified gene products have already been implicated in leptin signaling or obesity . annexin viii is a calcium - dependent phospholipid - binding protein expressed in lung , skin , liver , and kidney . the physiologic function of annexin viii remains unknown . fgf - inducible kinase ( fnk ) was first identified as a serine / threonine kinase induced by fibroblast growth factor fgf - 1 in murine nih 3t3 fibroblasts . it is closely related to the polo - family of serine / threonine protein kinases ( including human prk , mouse snk , human and murine plk , mouse sak , drosophila polo , and yeast cdc5 ). in adult animals , fnk - mrna is expressed at high levels in skin , but is also detected in brain , intestine , kidney , lung and ovary . in newborn animals , fnk transcripts are expressed in high levels in intestine , kidney , liver , lung and skin . the related prk and plk kinases are induced by cytokines in hematopoietic cells ( li et al ., 1996 ) and in primary t - cells ( holtrich et al ., 1994 ) respectively . these kinases may play a role in cell proliferation , but their precise role remains unclear . metallothionein - ii ( mt - ii ) is a member of a family of metal - binding proteins that are reported to function in the detoxification and homeostasis of heavy metals , in the scavenging of free radicals and in the acute phase response . importantly , it was recently reported that mt - ii deficient mice on a c57bl / 6j - 12901a genetic background show mild , late onset obesity ( beattie et al ., 1998 ). modulator recognition factor 1 ( mrf - 1 ) is a dna binding protein belonging to a poorly characterized protein family . ( genbank accession number for sequences of the human homologue and the related human mrf - 2 are m62324 and m73837 , respectively ). pancreatitis associated protein i ( pap i ) is a c - type lectin - related secretory protein present in small amounts in the rat pancreas ( in both endocrine and exocrine cells ) and is rapidly over expressed during the acute phase of pancreatitis . the physiological role of pap i is still unclear at present , but its involvement in acute pancreatitis as an acute phase protein suggests a role in tissue protection and / or recovery . pap i is also expressed in normal intestine and is induced by feeding ( dusetti et al ., 1995 ). signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 ( stat - 3 ) is a key transcription factor mediating the signals for a variety of cytokines . a critical role for stat - 3 in leptin signaling has been reported in cell lines ( baumann et al ., 1996 ) and in ob / ob mice ( vaisse et al ., 1996 ). squalene epoxidase is a rate - limiting enzyme in cholesterol biosynthesis . transcriptional regulation of squalene epoxidase by sterol is part of a coordinately controlled biosynthetic pathway ( nakamura et al ., 1996 ). suppressor of cytokine signaling - 3 ( socs - 3 ) belongs to a growing family of socs proteins . these proteins act as intracellular inhibitors of several cytokine signal transduction pathways . it was recently reported that socs - 3 may contribute to leptin resistance in vivo . ( bjorbaek et al ., 1998 ). uridinediphosphate glucuronyl transferase ( ugt ) is a key enzyme involved in bilirubin and drug detoxification , as well as in steroid inactivation and excretion , and in proteoglycan side chain formation . conjugation of compounds with glucuronic acid renders the molecule strongly acidic and more water soluble at physiological ph than the precursor molecule thereby facilitating metabolism , transport and secretion . two amplicons were cloned respectively derived from transcripts from so far unidentified genes coding for leptin induced proteins lip - i and lip - ii ( fig3 ). lip - ii belongs to the immunoglobulin superfamily and is a rat orthologue of the human down syndrome cell adhesion molecule , dscam . expression of dscam occurs primarily in the brain , and has been implicated in neural development . these leptin induced proteins lip - i and lip - il are hitherto unknown and are therefore new identified nucleic acid / protein sequences as such and thus form part of the current invention . the search for leptin - regulated genes was also extended to differentiated pc12 cells ( fig5 ). adherent pc12 - lr8 cells were treated with b - ngf and forskolin for 5 days , which led to a growth arrest , the formation of branched neuritic processes and the accumulation of small vesicles . again , a rda experiment was performed using mrnas from differentiated cells treated with leptin for 24 hours , or from untreated cells , both in the continued presence of b - ngf and forskolin . three leptin up - regulated transcripts were identified ( table 1 ). interestingly , one of the gene products , pap iii , belongs to the same protein family as pap i . mx2 is a type i interferon - inducible gene , involved in antiviral defense . high expression levels are observed in differentiated pc12 cells , in contrast to very weak expression in undifferentiated cells . peripherin is a cytoskeletal component , which is part of the type iii intermediate filament . increased expression levels are observed in differentiated cells when compared to undifferentiated cells . up - regulation has been described by interleukin 6 ( il - 6 ) and leukemia inhibitory factor ( lif ). pancreatitis associated protein iii ( pap iii ) is a member of the pap family of c - type animal lectins , mentioned above . it is also induced in normal intestine upon feeding ( dusetti et al ., 1995 ). another rda experiment was performed to identify transcripts differentially ( and selectively ) induced by hyper - il - 6 ( h - il - 6 ), as compared to leptin ( fig6 ). h - il - 6 is a fusion protein of il - 6 and the secreted il - 6r subunit ( fischer et al ., 1997 ). in most cases , h - il - 6 treatment led to up - regulation of the same gene - set as observed with leptin . two h - il - 6 induced transcripts , not induced by leptin , were identified . hip - i ( hyper - il - 6 induced protein i ) corresponds to a novel gene transcript ( fig7 ). reg is another member of the pap family of c - type lectins . reg was originally isolated from a cdna library from regenerating rat pancreas islets . other names are pancreatic stone protein ( psp ), pancreatic thread protein ( ptp ), islet cell regenerating factor and lithostatin . it is considered as a growth factor for pancreatic beta cells . similarly , the previously identified , related transcripts encoding pap i and pap iii , also appear to be strongly induced by h - il - 6 , in contrast to leptin , which requires forskolin co - stimulation . kinetics of induction identifies immediate early response genes and late target genes . next , the kinetics of induction of the above - mentioned transcripts in non - differentiated pc12 cells was analyzed upon leptin treatment . interestingly , two types of gene - sets could be distinguished : a group of immediate early response genes , including fnk , mt - ii , mrf - 1 , stat - 3 and socs - 3 , in which case induction occurs within 4 hours ( fig8 portion a ), and a series of late activated target genes including pap i , ugt , ann viii and squalene epoxidase , with induction not before 6 hours after stimulus ( fig8 portion c ). next the induction of the immediate early response genes was investigated in more detail ( fig8 portion b ). optimal stimulation varied between 30 minutes ( socs - 3 ) and 8 hours ( stat - 3 ) post induction . kinetics of synthesis of socs - 3 mrna showed a rapid decline already 2 hours post stimulation . in case of the late target gene - set , optimal mrna levels were observed between 22 hours ( pap i , ugt ) and over 96 hours ( annexin viii , squalene epoxidase ) post induction . as is apparent from fig8 the forskolin co - stimulation also allows distinguishing both gene - sets . in case of the immediate early response genes , some co - stimulation is apparent for mt - ii and mrf - 1 but only at later time points , and not in the early induction phase . in case of socs - 3 , forskolin co - treatment even leads to a reduced induction . in contrast , a strong co - stimulatory effect is seen in case of pap i , ugt , ann viii and squalene epoxidase from 22 hours post stimulation . to address the mechanism of induction of the late gene set , the effect of the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide on rpap i and annexin viii mrna expression was measured . treatment with cycloheximide ( 50 mmm , starting at 30 minutes before induction for 8 . 5 hours ) showed a strongly reduced expression 24 hours post induction , implying that de novo protein synthesis is required for induction of the late target gene set . regulation of mt - ii , fnk and pap i expression by leptin in ob / ob mice . in order to assess the value of our in vitro model system for obesity , we investigated the regulation by leptin of a subset of the identified genes in vivo . recombinant human leptin ( r & amp ; d systems ) was administered intraperitoneally to leptin deficient ob / ob mice in a single dose of 100 μg leptin / mouse . mice were killed by cervical dislocation 5 hours after treatment and total rna was isolated from liver and jejunum . northern blot analysis was performed using respectively mt - ii , fnk and pap i as probe ( fig9 ). leptin treatment of ob / ob mice caused a clear induction of mt - ii and fnk mrna expression in liver , while expression of pap i injejunum was downregulated by leptin . in a separate experiment 3 out of4 ob / ob mice showed clear induction of mt - ii and fnk mrna in liver two hours after stimulation with leptin ( 100 μg / mouse ) in combination with the 2a5 antibody ( 200 μg / mouse ). 2a5 has been shown before to potentiate leptin activity in vivo ( verploegen et al ., 1997 ). twelve hours after injection , expression levels returned to control levels . effects of starvation on mt - ii , fnk and pap i expression in wild type mice . we also investigated the effect of starvation on mt - ii and fnk expression in liver of wild type mice ( fig1 portion a ). mice , starved for 24 hours , received a single injection of human leptin intraperitoneally ( r & amp ; d systems , 50 μg / mouse ) in combination with the 2a5 anti - human leptin antibody ( 200 μg / mouse ). as a control , a single injection with endotoxin free pbs was performed similarly . the leptin effect was evaluated by northern blot analysis after 2 , 6 and 12 hours in prolonged starvation conditions . starvation conditions led to a moderate increase in mt - ii and fnk mrna expression in the liver . this effect was markedly enhanced by leptin plus 2a5 treatment , leading to a strong induction of mt - ii and fnk expression two hours post injection . six hours after leptin administration mt - ii mrna expression returned to the level observed in the pbs treated control mice , whereas fnk expression was maintained at higher expression level , compared to the control group . starvation also led to a spontaneous induction of mt - ii mrna injejunum . in contrast with the observation in liver , this effect was suppressed by leptin + 2a5 treatment 6 hours post injection . the expression levels of mt - ii recovered to control levels 12 hours post injection ( fig1 portion b ). a similar pattern was observed for pap i mrna expression injejunum , showing a reduction 24 hours after leptin + 2a5 treatment in starved mice , compared to the pbs treated controls . in order to further explain the invention some examples are given for the sake of clarity . pc12 cells were cultured in rpmi 1640 medium with glutamax - i ( gibcobrl ) containing 10 % heat - inactivated foetal calf serum ( ifcs ) and gentamycin ( 50 μg / ml ). the cells were treated with medium alone or supplemented with 100 ng / ml of mouse leptin ( r & amp ; d systems ), with forskolin ( sigma ) at a concentration of 10 μm or with a combination both , unless otherwise indicated . for neuronal differentiation , resuspended pc12 were seeded on rat tail collagen ( collaborative biomedical products ) coated plates at 2 - 3 10 6 cells / 25 cm 2 flask in rmpi 1640 medium with glutamax - i containing 10 % heat - inactivated horse serum , 5 % ifcs and gentamycin . after one day of culturing , the non - adherent cell fraction was removed by refreshing the medium . differentiation was induced by a combined b - ngf ( 10 ng / ml , r & amp ; d systems ) and forskolin ( 10 μm ) treatment for approximately 5 days . medium was replaced after 2 - 3 and 5 days . the pmet7 vector was used as an expression vector for the long and short isoforms of the mouse leptin receptor ( designated pmet7 - mlrlo and pmet7 - mlrsh , respectively ). pmet7 is a modified version of the mammalian pme18s expression vector that utilizes the sraa promoter as described by takebe ( takebe et al ., 1988 ). pc12 cells were transfected by electroporation using the equibio “ easyject one ” electroporator . typically , 10 7 cells were electroporated in 0 . 4 cm electrode gap cuvettes with 5 μg vector at 300v and 1500c . cell surface expression of each protein was measured by specific binding of the leptin - secreted alkaline phosphatase fusion protein ( see below ). cos1 cells were maintained in dmem supplemented with 10 % ifcs ( gibcobrl ), and were transfected with pmet7 - leptin seap ( a vector expressing the mouse leptin - secreted alkaline phosphatase fusion protein ) using lipofectane ( life technologies ). medium was replaced after 16 h and conditioned medium ( cm ) was harvested after 64 h . the estimated concentration of the leptin - seap fusion protein was approximately 1 μg / ml . selection of cell lines stably expressing the long isoform of the leptin receptor . pc12 cells were electroporated with the pmet7 - mlrlo expression vector together with the phcmv - mcs vector containing the neomycin resistance marker . transfected cells were selected for growth in rpmi 1640 medium containing glutamax - i ( gibcobrl ) and supplemented with 10 % heat - inactivated fetal bovine serum and gentamycin ( 50 μg / ml ). cells were first grown in selective medium containing 500 μg / ml g418 sulfate ( calbiochem ) for seven days and in 750 μg / ml g418 from day eight on . after four weeks of growth , colonies were transferred to 48 well plates in medium containing 750 μg / ml g418 . subclones were selected for leptin responsiveness and pap i gene activation using a one - tube rt - pcr procedure . in brief , after cell lysis mrna was hybridized with biotin labeled oligodt and captured to streptavidin - coated tubes . after three times washing , the same tubes were used for the rt - pcr , optimized for detection of pap i gene induction ( mrna capture and titan one tube procedure , boehringer mannheim ). cell surface expression of leptin receptors on pc12 cells was measured using a mouse leptin - secreted alkaline phosphatase chimeric protein as described ( baumann et al ., 1996 ; flanagan and leder , 1990 ). briefly , cells were washed 48 h post transfection ( wash buffer : rpmi 1640 , 0 . 1 % nan 3 , 20 mm hepes ph7 . 0 , 0 . 01 % tween 20 ) and were incubated for 90 min at room temperature with a { fraction ( 1 / 10 )} dilution of the cos1 cm containing the chimeric protein in wash buffer . after 6 successive washing steps , cells were lysed in a buffer containing 1 % tx - 100 , 10 mm tris . hcl ph7 . 4 and the lysates were treated at 65 ° c . for 30 min to inactivate endogenous alkaline phosphatases . alkaline phosphatase activity was measured using the cspd substrate ( phosphalight , tropix ) according to the manufacturers specifications in a topcount . nxt chemiluminescence counter ( packard ). rda was used to clone differentially expressed cdnas from pc12 cells , transiently transfected with the leptin receptor long isoform , or from neuronal differentiated pc12 - lr8 cells , which stably express the leptin receptor long isoform . in both cases , cloning was performed using mrna from cells either stimulated with leptin + forskolin or with forskolin alone . this rda procedure was essentially performed as originally described ( hubank and schatz , 1994 ) and modified by braun et al . ( braun et al ., 1995 ). pc12 cells were transfected with the pmet7 - lrlo expression vector and stimulated for 72 hours with forskolin alone or with a combination of forskolin and leptin . in case of neuronal differentiated pc12 - lr8 cells , mrna was obtained from cells treated with b - ngf and forskolin as described above for 5 days to induce neuronal differentiation , followed by a 24h treatment with leptin ( 100 ng / ml ) or without additional treatment . in case of hyper - il - 6 treatment , undifferentiated pc12 - lr8 cells were treated with either h - il - 6 ( 5 ng / ml ) or leptin ( 100 ng / ml ) for 24h , prior to mrna isolation and rda analysis . mrnas were isolated using the fast track method ( invitrogen ). a 2 μg sample of mrna of each cell population was used for rda analysis . cdnas were synthesized from the mrnas and digested with dpnii . two oligonucleotide adapter molecules , 5 ′ agcactctccagcctctcaccgca 3 ′ ( seq id no : 4 ) ( r - bgl - 24 ) and 5 ′ gatctgcggtga 3 ( seq id no : 5 )( r - bgl - 12 ), were ligated to the dpnii - digested cdna . this mixture was amplified by pcr with r - bgl - 24 oligonucleotides , and the adapters were excised with dpnii . a second pair of adapters , 5 ′ accgacgtcgactatccatgaaca 3 ′ ( seq id no : 6 ) ( j - bgl - 24 ) and 5 ′ gatctgttcatg 3 ′ ( seq id no : 7 ) ( j - bgl - 12 ) were ligated to the amplified fragments from the leptin - forskolin stimulated cell population and hybridized with the r - bgl - 24 amplified cdna fragments from the forskolin stimulated cell population ( r - bgl adapters removed ) at a ratio of 1 : 100 for 24h . the hybridization mix was used as template for amplification by pcr . a second round of subtraction was performed by removing the j - bgl adapters from this first round pcr product , ligating a third pair of oligonucleotide adapters , 5 ′ aggcaactgtgctatccgagggaa 3 ′ ( seq id no : 8 ) ( n - bgl - 24 ) and 5 ′ gatcttccctcg 3 ′ ( seq id no : 9 ) ( n - bgl - 12 ), and hybridizing with driver amplicons at a ratio of 1 : 800 . a third round of subtraction and amplification was performed using the same conditions as in the first round . subsequently the transcripts were subcloned into the pcdna3 or pcr - blunt ( invitrogen ) vector . most insert dnas were sequenced using the alf express sequencer ( pharmacia ) with the autoread sequencing kit according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s specifications . primers for sequencing the inserts were the c15 - labeled m13 forward primer for the pcr - blunt clones , and the 5 ′- gaacccactgcttaactggc ( seq id no : 10 ) forward and 5 ′- gtcgaggctgatcagcgagc ( seq id no : 11 ) reverse primers for the pcdna3 clones . in other cases , sequencing was using an abi prism 377 dna sequencer ( perkin elmer ) using the m13 forward primer . total rna was prepared from pc12 cells using rneasy ™ method ( qiagen ). rna ( 10 μg ) was separated on a 1 . 5 % agarose , 6 % formaldehyde gel , transferred to a nylon membrane ( zeta - probe gt genomic , bio - rad ), and cross - linked using uv radiation . the filters were hybridized for one hour at 68 ° c . in expresshyb ™ solution ( clontech ) with [ 32 p ] dctp - labeled dna - probes and washed 3 times with 2 × ssc , 0 . 05 % sds at room temperature and twice in 0 . 1 × ssc , 0 . 1 % sds at 50 ° c . autoradiographs were obtained by exposing the blots to biomax ms film ( kodak ) with intensifying screens at − 70 ° c . all northern blots were normalized by hybridization using a b - actin probe . luciferase activity was measured in transfected cells by cheriluminescence . briefly , 1 × 10 5 were lysed in 100 μl of lysis buffer ( 25 mm tris , ph 7 . 8 with h 3 po 4 ; 2 mm cdta ; 2 mm dtt ; 10 % glycerol ; 1 % triton x - 100 ). 70 μl of luciferase substrate buffer ( 20 mm tricine ; 1 . 07 mm ( mgco 3 ) 4 mg ( oh ) 2 5h 2 o ; 2 . 67 mm mgso 4 ; 0 . 1 mm edta ; 33 . 3 mm dtt ; 270 μm coenzyme a ( lithium salt ); 470 μm luciferin ( duchefa ); 530 μm atp , final ph 7 . 8 ) was added to 100 μl of cell lysate and measured for 5 seconds by topcount . nxt chemiluminescence counter ( packard ). specific pathogen - free female c57bl / 6j - lep ob mice , 9 weeks old at the beginning of the experiment further referred to as ob / ob were obtained from the jackson laboratory ( maine , usa ). specific pathogen - free c57bl / 6ncrlbr mice , 8 weeks old at the beginning of the experiment , further referred to as wildtype ( wt ) were obtained from charles rivers labs . the animals were housed in a temperature - controlled environment with 12 hour light / dark cycles and received water and food ad libitum , with exception for the starvation experiment . all experiments were performed according to the european guidelines on animal care and use . recombinant human leptin ( r & amp ; d systems ) was diluted in endotoxin free pbs and administered intraperitoneally in a dose of 100 μg / mouse . in case of co - administration of2a5 , a monoclonal antibody raised against human leptin ( verploegen et al ., 1997 ), the dose of leptin was reduced to 50 μg / mouse . the dose of the antibody was 200 μg / mouse . the endotoxin content of the antibody was 0 . 07 ng / mg protein , as assessed by a chromogenic limulus amebocyte lysate assay ( coatest , chromogenix , stockholm , sweden ). animals were sacrificed using cervical dislocation . tissues were resected immediately and frozen in liquid nitrogen . rna extraction and northern blot analysis was performed as described above . table 1 . the lengths of the corresponding transcripts were estimated from northern blot analysis . in the rda number column 1 , 2 and 3 respectively correspond with an rda experiment from non - differentiated pc12 cells treated with forskolin or forskolin plus leptin ; from differentiated pc12 cells maintained in b - ngf and forskolin and treated with leptin or left untreated ; or from non - differentiated pc12 cells treated with hyper - il - b or leptin , respectively . baumann , h ., morella , k . k ., white , d . w ., dembski , m ., bailon , p . s ., kim , h ., lai , c . f ., and tartaglia , l . a . 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( 1996 ) prk , a cytokine - inducible human protein serine / threonine kinase whose expression appears to be down - regulated in lung carcinomas . j . biol . chem ., 271 , 19402 - 19408 . montague , c . t ., farooqi , i . s ., whitehead , j . p ., soos , m . a ., rau , h ., wareham , n . j ., sewter , c . p ., digby , j . e ., mohammed , s . n ., hurst , j . a ., cheetham , c . h ., earley , a . r ., barnett , a . h ., prins , j . b ., and o &# 39 ; rahilly , s . ( 1997 ) congenital leptin deficiency is associated with severe early - onset obesity in humans . nature , 387 , 903 - 908 . nakamura , y ., sakakibara , j ., izumi , t ., shibata , a . and ono , t . ( 1996 ) transcriptional regulation of squalene epoxidase by sterols and inhibitors in hela cells . j . biol . chem ., 271 , 8053 - 8056 . pelleymounter , m . a ., cullen , m . j ., baker , m . b ., hecht , r ., winters , d ., boone , t ., and collins , f . 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reference will now be made in detail to the present preferred embodiment of the invention , an example of which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings . referring now to fig2 and 3 , a vehicle door mirror including the present invention is explained . a mirror case ( 1 ) is fixed to a vehicle body . in the mirror case ( 1 ), a metal frame ( 2 ) is fixed to the case ( 1 ) by the screw ( 3 ). a mirror base ( 4 ) is pivotally mounted by a ball joint ( not shown ) in order to change a direction of a mirror ( 12 ). the mirror base ( 4 ) is made of synthetic resin . a mirror driving unit ( 5 ) is fixed to the metal frame ( 2 ) by screws ( 5a ). the mirror driving unit ( 5 ) includes two output rods ( not shown ) which are capable of driving or displacing an angle of the major planar surface of the mirror ( 12 ) independently toward different directions . one end of each rod is connected to a different place on the mirror base ( 4 ) with respect to the other rod . the mirror base ( 4 ) is inclined toward an up and down direction or left and right direction when the output rods are driven by the mirror driving unit ( 5 ). each rod of the mirror driving unit ( 5 ) is covered by one of the rubber bellows ( 6 , 7 ). one end of each bellows ( 6 , 7 ) is adhered to the mirror driving unit ( 5 ), and the other end of each bellows ( 6 , 7 ) is adhered to the mirror base ( 4 ). a mirror frame ( 8 ) is adhered to the mirror base ( 4 ). the , mirror frame ( 8 ) is made of a synthetic resin , and includes a loop flange ( 11 ). the loop flange ( 11 ) supports or confronts the outer circumference of the mirror ( 12 ) in order to fix the mirror ( 12 ) to the mirror frame ( 8 ). the mirror frame ( 8 ) includes a plurality of projections ( 8a , 8b , 8c ) which are used in order to contact the mirror ( 12 ) with the mirror frame ( 8 ) partly . accordingly , the mirror ( 12 ) is pinched between the loop flange ( 11 ) and the projections ( 8a , 8b , 8c ). as shown in fig3 six ultrasonic vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) are pinched between the mirror frame ( 8 ) and the mirror ( 12 ). in this embodiment , the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) are positioned in order to constitute a 2 × 3 matrix . in this embodiment , these ultrasonic vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) are piezoelectric elements . further , a thermister ( 13 ) is adhered to the mirror ( 12 ) in order to detect a temperature of the mirror ( 12 ). a control device ( 14 ) is fixed to the mirror base ( 4 ). the control device ( 14 ) is positioned between mirror base ( 4 ) and the mirror case ( 1 ). referring now to fig1 a circuit diagram of the control device ( 14 ) is explained . as the present invention is meant for implementation in vehicles ( e . g ., automobiles ) the voltage source vc illustrated throughout fig1 can be provided by the vehicles battery or electrical generating system . each ultrasonic vibrator ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 20f ) is driven by a separate oscillator circuit ( 20a , 20b , 20c , 20d , 20e , 20f ). however , only the oscillator circuit ( 20a ) is shown in fig1 because remaining oscillator circuits ( 20b , 20c 20d , 20e , 20f ) are each constructed of the same circuit . each oscillator circuit ( 20 ) is a colpitts oscillating circuit that is well known in the art . each oscillator circuit ( 20 ) generates the a . c . signal with a determined frequency ( f 0 ). the frequency ( f 0 ) is determined to be 1 . 7 ( mhz ) by following the formula in this embodiment . ## equ1 ## this oscillator circuit ( 20 ) comprises a transistor ( q 0 ), resisters ( r 1 , r 2 , r 3 ), condensers ( c 1 , c 2 , c 3 , c 4 , c 5 ) and coils ( l 1 , l 2 , l 3 ). the condenser ( c 5 ) is utilized for a regulation of supplied d . c . voltage . the control device ( 14 ) further includes a temperature detecting circuit ( 21 ). the detecting circuit ( 21 ) includes resistors ( r 4 , r 5 , r 6 , r 7 , r 8 , r 9 ), clipping diodes ( d 3 , d 4 ) and thermister ( 13 ). the resistors ( r 4 , r 5 , r 6 , r 7 ) constitute a resistor bridge circuit . the thermister ( 13 ) is inserted in the bridge circuit . the detecting circuit ( 21 ) generates a voltage level corresponding to the detected temperature . the voltage level from the detecting circuit ( 21 ) is applied to a comparing circuit ( 22 ). the comparing circuit ( 22 ) comprises a resistors ( r 20 , r 21 ) and comparator ( comp ). a predetermined reference voltage ( vth ) corresponding to 60 (° c ) is generated by a voltage divider comprising a voltage source and resistors ( r 20 , r 21 ). the comparator ( comp ) generates a ` high level ` signal when the voltage level from the detecting circuit ( 21 ) exceeds a generates a ` low level ` signal when the voltage level from the detecting circuit ( 21 ) is below the reference level ( vth ). accordingly , the comparator ( comp ) turns on a transistor ( q 1 ) though a resistor ( r 22 ) and a diode ( d 1 ) when the detected temperature exceeds 60 (° c ). while the transistor ( q 1 ) is turned on , a transistor ( q 3 ) and a relay ( ry ) is turned off . accordingly , every oscillator ( 20 ) stops oscillating because no electric power is being supplied thereto ( 20 ). transistor ( q 3 ) is turned on and off by a pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) through the transistor ( q 2 ) while the transistor ( q 1 ) is turned off . the pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) comprises a clock pulse generator , a frequency divider for dividing a frequency of the generated clock pulse , binary counters for counting the divided clock pulse and other logic circuits . in this embodiment , the pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) generates three types of pulse patterns . fig4 ( a ), 4 ( b ) and 4 ( c ) show one cycle of these pulse patterns . fig4 ( a ) shows a pulse pattern for mainly removing water drops on the mirror ( 12 ). the pulse pattern in fig4 ( a ) includes one ` low level ` signal within a duration of 700 ( msec ), and three ` high level ` signals each within a duration of 200 ( msec ) and alternating with three ` low level ` signals each within a duration of 200 ( msec ) in one cycle . one cycle of the pulse pattern in fig4 ( a ) is generated by the pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) when a switch ( sw 1 ) is turned on . while the first ` low level ` signal within the duration of 700 ( msec ) is generated , the transistor ( q 2 ) and relay ( ry ) are turned on . at this moment , the oscillator ( 20 ) start oscillating , and the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated by the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ). while the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated , the water drops are removed rapidly since the water drops on the mirror ( 12 ) is splashed or dripped as a result of the vibrations . normally , the water drops are removed from the mirror ( 12 ) almost perfectly after the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated within the duration of 700 ( msec ). however , in the preferred embodiment ; the mirror ( 12 ) is further vibrated within 200 ( msec ) cyclically at three times with durations each of 200 ( msec ) interval in order to remove the water drops from the mirror ( 12 ) more certainly . while the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated , the temperature of the mirror ( 12 ) rises , and the temperature is detected by the detecting circuit ( 21 ). when the temperature of the mirror ( 12 ) exceeds 60 (° c ), the transistor ( q 1 ) is turned on . then the relay ( ry ) is turned off and no electric power is supplied to the ultrasonic vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ). as a result , the temperature of the mirror ( 12 ) as a result of vibration is never caused to exceed 60 (° c ). by the way , according to the pulse pattern in fig4 ( a ), only local positions near the ultrasonic vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) are heated , the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) generate the heat so rapidly that each oscillator ( 20 ) stops oscillating before conducting the heat to the mirror ( 12 ). as a result , the circumferential part of the mirror ( 12 ) does not heated sufficiently . fig4 ( b ) shows a pulse pattern for removing the water drops , frost and ice from the mirror ( 12 ). the pulse pattern in fig4 ( b ) includes eight ` low level ` signals within durations of 50 ( msec ) and seven ` high level ` signals within duration of 200 ( msec ). one cycle of the pulse pattern in fig4 ( b ) is generated by the pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) when a switch ( sw 3 ) is turned on . while the ` low level ` signals within duration of 50 ( msec ) are generated , the transistor ( q 2 ) and relay ( ry ) are turned on . at this moment , the oscillator ( 20 ) starts oscillating , and the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated by the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ). further , while the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated , the mirror ( 12 ) is heated . according to the pulse pattern in fig4 ( b ), the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) are to generate the heat gradually , and hence the duration of each ` low level ` signal is shortened . therefore , each oscillator ( 20 ) continues the oscillation until the heat generated by the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) is conducted to the mirror ( 12 ) sufficiently . as a result , an entire major planar surface of the mirror ( 12 ) is heated on the whole . fig5 shows temperature characteristics on the mirror ( 12 ) in comparison to temperature characteristics with joule &# 39 ; s heater . the temperature on the mirror ( 12 ) reaches about 40 (° c ) to 60 (° c ). accordingly , frost and ice are melted by the heated mirror ( 12 ) and become water drops naturally . while the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated , the water drops are removed rapidly since the water drops on the mirror ( 12 ) are splashed or dripped by the vibrations . thus , not only the water drops , but also the frost and ice are removed from the mirror ( 12 ). fig4 ( c ) shows a pulse pattern for removing water drops and frost from the mirror ( 12 ). the pulse pattern in fig4 ( c ) includes one ` low level ` signal within duration of 400 ( msec ), five ` high level ` signals each within a duration of 100 ( msec ), two ` low level ` signals each within a duration of 200 ( msec ) and three ` low level ` signals each within a duration of 100 ( msec ). one cycle of the pulse pattern in fig4 ( c ) is generated by the pulse pattern generating circuit ( 23 ) when a switch ( sw 2 ) is turned on . this pulse pattern in fig4 ( c ) is a comprises pattern with respect to the patterns of fig4 ( a ) and fig4 ( b ). accordingly , while the mirror ( 12 ) is vibrated , the water drops and frost can be removed from the whole of the mirror ( 12 ). as described above , the temperature of the mirror ( 12 ) is maintained under about 60 (° c ) in this embodiment . accordingly , life times of the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ) and the mirrors are elongated . meanwhile , in this embodiment , the thermister ( 13 ) is utilized for detecting the temperature of the mirror ( 12 ). however , other types of detecting devices , such as a temperature switch , etc ., can be utilized instead of the thermister ( 13 ). further , the thermister ( 13 ) is fixed to the mirror ( 12 ) in this embodiment . however , the thermister can also be positioned at a different place . for example , the thermister ( 13 ) can be fixed to the vibrators ( 10a , 10b , 10c , 10d , 10e , 10f ). various modification may be made in the invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention .	1
germanium n - butylamidinate has a low vapor pressure that makes it difficult to deliver to a substrate wafer using a delivery system such as a chemical vapor deposition ( cvd ) system . in the delivery system of the present disclosure using a source comprising germanium butylamidinate , diterbutyltelluride , and tris ( dimethylamido ) antimony , the deposition of ge , gete , or gesbte is typically at very low rate such that a film formed on the substrate wafer is desirably and suitably conformal and amorphous . i . e ., [{ nbuc ( iprn ) 2 } 2 ge ], or bis ( 2 - butyl - n , n ′- diisopropylamidinato ) germanium , and is also referred to herein as gem . the system and method of the disclosure are also applicable to other germanium amidinate compounds , of the general formula each r is independently selected from among h , c 1 - c 6 alkyl , c 5 - c 10 cycloalkyl , c 6 - c 10 aryl , and ) — si ( r 0 ) 3 wherein each r 0 is independently selected from c 1 - c 6 alkyl ; and each x is independently selected from among c 1 - c 6 alkyl , c 1 - c 6 alkoxy , — nr 1 r 2 , and — c ( r 3 ) 3 , wherein each of r 1 , r 2 and r 3 is independently selected from h , c 1 - c 6 alkyl , c 5 - c 10 cycloalkyl , c 6 - c 10 aryl , and — si ( r 4 ) 3 wherein each r 4 is independently selected from c 1 - c 6 alkyl . a batch process in which multiple wafers are treated simultaneously is desired for efficient wafer throughput . in such a batch process , wafers may be ( 1 ) stacked side - by - side on a platform or stage , or ( 2 ) stacked with suitable spacing in a tube furnace . in either configuration , sufficient delivery of the low vapor pressure germanium n - butylamidinate precursor to the individual wafer surface while maintaining a uniform flux over the wafer surface is desired . fig1 is a schematic representation of a chemical vapor deposition apparatus 10 in which germanium n - butylamidinate 38 is stored in the chemical vapor deposition chamber and vaporized in the chamber for contacting with a semiconductor substrate . as shown , the chemical vapor deposition apparatus 10 includes a chamber wall 12 , within which is provided a circumscribing heating shield 14 , which may be formed of sheet - metal or other thermally conductive material . the chamber wall 12 and heating shield 14 thus , our coaxially arranged with respect to one another , and form an annular volume 16 therebetween . at the upper end of the heating shield 14 is mounted a showerhead plate member 18 , having openings 20 therein for downward flow through the plate member of various fluid species , including ( i ) the germanium precursor , bis ( 2 - butyl - n , n - diisopropylamidinato ) germanium , designated gem , ( ii ) the antimony precursor , tetrakis ( dimethylamido ) antimony , designated sbtdma , ( iii ) the tellurium precursor , di - t - butyl - tellurium , te ( tbu ) 2 , and ( iv ) the co - flow gas mixture of ammonia and hydrogen , nh 3 / h 2 . by such arrangement , the precursor vapors and co - reactants are flowed downwardly through the showerhead plate member . located below such showerhead plate member is a conductive metal mesh member 22 , arranged to be heated by the coil heater 24 to suitable temperature , such as a temperature in a range of from 180 to 400 ° c . positioned at a lower portion of the cvd chamber is a stage 26 , arranged with a heating coil 28 so that the stage is heated to suitable temperature , e . g ., temperature in a range of from 110 to 250 ° c ., for corresponding heating of the wafer 30 mounted on the stage . the wafer may for example have a size of 2 . 5 cm × 2 . 5 cm , and the spacing s between the wafer and the heating coil 24 / conductive metal mesh member 22 may be on the order of 1 . 2 to 2 . 5 cm . the cvd chamber includes an observation port in the form of a laterally projecting extension 32 closed at its outer end by an observation window 34 suitably sealed to the extension by means of a coupling including gasket 36 . between the gasket 36 and the window 34 , condensed germanium precursor may be trapped as a deposit 38 . when this deposit is heated , as for example to it , temperature on the order of 70 ° c ., the precursor is re - volatilized , and resulting gem vapor flows to the wafer 30 and is contacted therewith , to deposit germanium on such substrate . fig1 provides a schematic illustration of one exemplary embodiment of a process with internal germanium n - butylamidinate precursor delivery . the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is heated to 130 ° c . in a stainless steel vessel and vaporized . for such purpose , a vaporizer vessel of a type that is commercially available from atmi , inc . ( danbury , conn ., usa ) under the trademark proe - vap ® can be advantageously used . upon delivery to a cvd chamber , the vaporized precursor condenses in a cold spot at about 70 ° c . to form the condensate 38 , which is at the window 34 of the chemical vapor deposition apparatus 10 , and is stored in the cvd chamber . the condensed and stored germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is then heated to a higher temperature around 100 ° c ., thereby causing it to vaporize and flowed to the substrate , as previously described . by such arrangement , the precursor vapor , and co - reactants flowed downwardly through the chamber and are discharged at a lower end thereof in the direction indicated by arrows b , by action of a pump or other motive fluid driver ( not shown ), to remove reacted , partially reacted , and unreacted precursors and co - reactants from the chamber . table 1 below lists some experimental results of ge x sb y te z deposition from the precursor source materials described above , in a cvd chamber of the type described above and shown in fig1 , with the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor heated to about 100 ° c . as indicated above . the te ( tbu ) 2 and sbtdma were heated separately to increase the activation of these two precursors . fig2 is a schematic perspective view of a tray structure 50 for holding germanium n - butylamidinate for vaporization in a vapor deposition chamber . fig3 is a photographic perspective view of the tray structure of fig2 . as shown in fig2 , a configuration of a delivery system of the present disclosure for use in a cvd process is shown . in this configuration , germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is introduced into a tray of the type shown in fig2 . this tray includes a circumscribing sidewall 52 joined at its lower end to a bottom surface of floor member 56 having holes therein . tubes 62 extend from the holes in the tray and define passages 64 to allow other precursors and co - reactants to pass from one side of the tray to the other . in the center of the floor member is a collar 58 . defining a central passage 60 through which one or more fluid components can be passed downwardly for subsequent upflow through the passages 64 of the tubes 62 . germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is charged into the tray 50 in solid or liquid form or as a solid dissolved in solvent . the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor in liquid form will be at a temperature higher than 40 ° c . if the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is charged into the tray in solvent , the solvent will be boiled off , thereby causing the germanium n - butylamidinate in liquid form to stay in the tray . the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor can be recharged to tray ( s ) of such type by injection of germanium n - butylamidinate melted at greater than the melting point , i . e ., in a liquid form , or germanium n - butylamidinate can be introduced as dissolved in solvent , via a tube from a source external to the process chamber or tube furnace . as an internal germanium n - butylamidinate source , the solvent is boiled off after a charge of the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor in a solvent medium . thus , the tray structure shown in fig2 and 3 employs tubes 62 that allow gas / vapor to pass through , while the floor member and circumscribing sidewall of the tray cooperate to retain the germanium precursor in liquid or solid form . a tray of such type may be relatively small in size , e . g ., about 10 cm in diameter , or alternatively , the tray may be constructed with a very large size , to enable the tray to be placed under many wafers mounted in side - by - side relationship to one another in a batch chemical vapor deposition chamber . alternatively , a tray of appropriate size , e . g ., 30 cm diameter , may be placed under each individual wafer in the cvd chamber , with the wafer being of a same or alternatively a different size than the tray . fig4 is a top plan view of a batch process arrangement in which multiple wafers 84 are mounted in a spaced array , above a foraminous tray 80 holding germanium n - butylamidinate in receptacle portions of the tray , while allowing passage of vapor of other precursors as well as other fluid co - reactants or carrier gases , e . g ., te ( tbu ) 2 , sbtdma , carrier gas , co - reactants , etc ., to flow through openings 82 of the tray . such other precursors may be heated to a suitable temperature , e . g ., in a range of from 180 to 400 ° c ., for pre - activation thereof . in this arrangement , the single tray 80 is mounted beneath multiple wafers in the array . the receptacle portions of the tray 80 contain germanium n - butylamidinate , which is heated to a temperature in a range of from 40 to 150 ° c . to volatilize the germanium precursor and form a germanium precursor vapor . thus , the holes 82 in the tray 80 permit precursors , other than germanium n - butylamidinate , along with carrier gases , co - reactants , etc ., to flow through the tray openings , while the germanium precursor is stored , with the tray functioning as a pan in which the germanium precursor is retained , and to which additional germanium precursor can be added by injection or in other suitable manner . for example , the germanium precursor can be added in a solution or suspension , in a suitable solvent , so that subsequent to introduction to the tray , the solvent will evaporate upon heating and / or pump - down to vacuum level in the vapor deposition chamber , leaving the germanium precursor in the pan structure of the tray , so that the germanium precursor can thereafter be volatilized to form precursor vapor for contacting with the microelectronic device substrate . fig5 is an elevation view of the central wafer 84 and associated tray structure 80 of fig4 , taken along line a - a of fig4 . as illustrated in fig4 , many wafers can be arranged to have their device surface ( the surfaces of the wafers on which devices are located ) facing the direction of germanium n - butylamidinate vapor flux from the tray . the sb , te , and any co - reactants involved will pass through the openings in the tray , schematically represented as holes 82 . the germanium precursor retained in the receptacle portion of the tray between the tube openings will then volatilize and form a vapor flux that contacts the device side 86 of the microelectronic device substrate , so that the germanium precursor vapor co - flows with the other precursors being flowed in the direction indicated by arrows e toward the substrate . fig6 is a perspective schematic view of a vapor deposition chamber 100 defining an interior chamber volume 102 in which multiple wafers 106 are mounted above respective trays 104 that are coextensive in areal extent with the respective wafers with which they are associated . thus , in this arrangement , there are as many trays as wafers , with the size of the trays being the same as the size of the wafers in diameter and area , and both being circular or disk - like in shape . fig7 is a schematic elevation view of the multiple wafer and tray structure shown in fig6 , taken along line a ′- a ′ of fig6 . as illustrated , the microelectronic device substrate , wafer 106 , is oriented with its device side 108 facing the tray 104 . in this manner , the germanium precursor held in the receptacle portion of the tray is volatilized and flows with the precursor vapor of other precursors ( passing through openings of the tray , in the direction indicated by arrows ) for contacting with the device side 108 of the substrate 106 . the delivery of the germanium n - butylamidinate precursor from a tray is a proportional function of the inner surface area of that tray . by using the tray specified in fig2 , 3 , 6 , and 7 , the inner surface area of the trays is as large as that of the wafer surface , which will lead to sufficient delivery of gem to the wafer . also , the wafers are positioned such that the device side of each faces the tray , with the surfaces of the device sides parallel to the trays containing germanium n - butylamidinate . a plurality of trays may be alternatingly stacked with the wafers such that precursor flux is in the direction of the device side of each wafer , to enable substantially uniform delivery of germanium n - butylamidinate precursor flux to the device side of each wafer . fig8 is a schematic elevation view of a tube furnace 120 including a furnace housing 122 defining an enclosed interior volume 124 containing multiple wafers 126 , 128 and 130 , each mounted above a tray 140 , 142 and 144 , respectively , with the trays containing openings for flow of fluid therethrough in the direction indicated by arrows m . the trays also include receptacle portions adapted to hold germanium precursor for volatilization in the furnace to generate precursor vapor for contacting with the wafer surface . in this orientation , the wafers are arranged with their device sides 132 , 134 and 136 in facing relationship to the tray retaining the germanium precursor , and generating a germanium precursor vapor flux for contacting with the device side of the corresponding wafer . in the fig8 arrangement , wafers are stacked vertically inside a tube furnace with the device side facing the vaporization of the precursors in the tray . there are as many trays as there are wafers , with each tray under a corresponding wafer . the tray can be loaded into the tube furnace in a similar fashion as the wafer , after the tray is loaded with precursor for each run . in the configurations shown in fig4 - 8 , the trays can be stationed inside the deposition chamber under continuous vacuum without the interference of loading and unloading the wafers via a vacuum load lock . in the configurations in fig6 - 8 , however , the trays can be removed from the chamber or the tube furnace and put back as desired in a similar fashion of taking wafers in and out using a robotic transfer mechanism , provided such transfers keep the trays containing germanium n - butylamidinate under vacuum . the configurations in fig6 - 8 allow for the easy maintenance of the trays , such as cleaning the trays . although fig4 - 8 show that the device sides of the wafers are facing down to receive the germanium n - butylamidinate from the trays and sb and te precursors flowing upwardly through the holes of the trays , the wafers can also be placed with the device sides facing upward and with the trays containing germanium n - butylamidinate above the wafer . in this case , the vaporized germinanium n - butylamidinate will pass toward the wafer device side surfaces through the holes , together with the sb and te precursor . this is shown in fig9 . fig9 is a schematic elevation view of a vapor deposition chamber arrangement 150 including a microelectronic device substrate 154 oriented with its device side 156 on top , and mounted below a tray 152 including receptacle portions 158 for holding germanium precursor 172 and openings 160 for allowing downflow of antimony and tellurium precursor vapors in the direction indicated by corresponding arrows . by this arrangement , the germanium precursor vapor produced by volatilization of the germianium precursor in the heated chamber is co - flowed with the antimony and tellurium precursor vapors for contacting the device side 156 of the microelectronic device substrate 154 . in operation , the vaporized germanium n - butylamidinate precursor is carried toward the device side of the wafer surface via holes 160 after vaporizing and leaving the surface of the tray 152 . other precursors such as te ( tbu ) 2 and sbtdma , carrier gas , co - reactants , etc . pass through the holes . one or more of the precursors can be heated by a hot zone , e . g ., to temperature in a range of from 180 ° c . to 400 ° c ., in the precursor passage during its flow toward the wafer device side surface 156 , for pre - activation of such precursors . although this disclosure has been set forth and described with respect to the detailed embodiments thereof , it will be understood by those of skill in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the disclosure . in addition , modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the disclosure without departing from the essential scope thereof . therefore , it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiments disclosed in the above detailed description , but that the disclosure will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the foregoing description , the drawings , and the appended claims hereof .	2
the novel method of this invention is concerned with interposing , between the burn or decubitus patient and a surface which supports him , a disposable laminated fabric which insulates the patient from those surfaces which may tend to infect or adhere to damaged body tissues . such a method may be accomplished in any number of ways by either covering surfaces with which the patient will come into contact or covering the patient himself . while all such variations come under the principle of the present invention , the method will be described according to common applications in the treatment of burn victims . to insulate the burned or otherwise damaged tissues of the patient from the usual bed coverings or linens which generally tend to adhere to the patient &# 39 ; s wounds , the method of the present invention entails spreading over a bed a generally nonadhering disposable laminated bed sheet having outer layers of a nonwoven non - migrating fibrous rayon and inner layer of polyurethane foam , which inner layer is fastened by an adhesive to the outer layers over their entire extent . the patient is then positioned on the bed in such a manner that burned tissue of the patient &# 39 ; s body is in contact only with the laminated bed sheet provided by the method of the present invention . a second sheet of similar material may then be used to at least partially cover the patient for the purpose of covering him to prevent exposure or to further insulate him from contact with usual bed coverings which may be required for warmth . in the normal course of treatment of a burn victim , it is likely that the patient will come into contact with surfaces other than his own bed . for example , operating tables or other structures provided for special treatment of burn victims may be similarly covered according to the method of this invention . an important point is that the damaged tissue of the patient be protected by interposing between the tissue and any surface which it would contact a generally nonadhering disposable laminated fabric described in connection with the method of this invention . the aforementioned laminated fabric has an inner core of cellular plastic material having compressible foam cells and outer layers on opposite sides of the core formed of nonwoven non - migrating fibrous material . the nonwoven outer layers are attached to the inner core of cellular plastic by layers of adhesive . specifically , the inner core may be an open cell polyurethane , the outer layers an oriented rayon as described below and the adhesive may be polyvinyl chloride . the outer rayon layers are comprised of a multitude of rayon fibers longitudinally oriented with respect to the web which they form . the fibers are not woven together , but rather , they are bonded to one another by an acrylic resin applied generally to one entire side of the rayon web . the resultant rayon web thus has a smooth side presenting firmly fixed nonwoven rayon fibers and a rougher side revealing the loose fiber ends . it is essential feature of the laminated fabric that the smooth side of the rayon layers be directed outwardly so that the free ends of the fibers wick inwardly toward the adhesive in which they are fixed . thus , outward migration of individual fibers which would tend to adhere to damaged body tissues of the patient is prevented and a nonadhering surface is presented to the patient . to manufacture the disposable laminated fabric , a web of the nonwoven rayon is unwound from a roll and passed over a roller which applies an adhesive to the rougher sde of the rayon web . a web of an open cell polyurethane which is slightly wider than the rayon web is unrolled from a second roller at a speed slightly slower than that at which the rayon is advanced . the polyurethane web is passed through subsequent rollers which increase its speed to that of the rayon web , thereby slightly stretching the polyurethane longitudinally which produces a consequent slight reduction in width to that of the thinner rayon web . one purpose of stretching the inner foam layer , on the order of ten percent , is to present a smooth taut surface for attachment by the rayon fibers of the outer layers . the foam web is then brought into contact with the adhesive coated side of the rayon web as they are passed together through heated variable pressure rollers . a second web of longitudinally oriented nonwoven rayon is advanced from a second roll and passed over another roller which applies adhesive to its rougher side . the second adhesive coated rayon web is then brought into contact with the exposed surface of the polyurethane and run between further heated variable pressure rollers from which the three part laminate web results . thus the laminate consists of a slightly stretched inner open cell foam polyurethane core and outer unstretched nonwoven fabric layers adhered to the foam core by layers of adhesive . no further operations are necessary as may be required for other laminate fabric structures wherein substantial elasticity or stretchability are essential characteristics . to enhance patient comfort during treatment and custodial care , the resulting laminate has a highly resilient surface . the inherent cushioning effect of the foam inner layer certainly contributes to this resiliency . but it is also partially due to the slight relaxation of the inner foam polyurethane core which was slightly stretched during assembly of the laminate fabric . although the relaxation is not sufficient to impart a readily noticeable elasticity to the fabric or to cause deep wrinkles in the laminate , a certain resiliency is thereby imparted to the finished fabric . likewise , although the smooth surface of the outer rayon web layers is generally maintained , a gentle waveiness is apparent in the resultant laminate surface which further contributes to the smooth resilient surface presented to the damaged tissue of the burn victim . in some cases , burns may cover such a large percentage of the patient &# 39 ; s body surface that some burned tissue is necessarily engaged against the laminate sheeting on which the patient is positioned . the laminate fabric described above permits the natural healing of such tissue because it its inherent high permeability which results in excellent air and fluid exchange to the damaged tissue . the fabric acts as a sponge for removing fluids from the body tissue . the fluid is passed through the fabric and collected in the mattress pad or underlying bed covering so as to be generally removed from the patient . this is because the rayon is nonabsorbent and so also is the foam . liquid collects in the voids of the foam but not in the body of the polyurethane foam itself . an essential characteristic of the laminated fabric , which contributes to the beneficial treatment provided by the method of the present invention , is its nonadherence to the patient &# 39 ; s body tissues . this is necessary so that the sheeting may be placed against , over or under severely burned or otherwise damaged body tissues without sticking or imparing the healing process . nonadherence is largely due to the fact that the rayon fibers do not migrate since the outer surface of the laminate presents firmly fixed rayon fibers which are bound together by a resin . the free ends of the fibers generally wick inwardly to contact the adhesive and thereby prevent outward migration of the fiber ends which would tend to adhere to the patient &# 39 ; s tissue . it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the method of the present invention has an inherent versatility which goes beyond only insulating a burn victim from a bed surface . for example , footwear or loose fitting garments such as capes or ponchos may be provided and fitted onto burn patients for their comfort and protection when not confined to recovery in bed . thus it is apparent that there has been provided , in accordance with the invention , a method of treating and providing custodial care for burn and decubitus patients that wholly satisfies the objects , aims and advantages set forth above . it is evident that many alternatives , modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description . accordingly , it is intended to embrace all such alternatives , modification , and variations as fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims .	0
for the purposes of promoting an understanding of the principles of the invention and presenting its currently understood best mode of operation , reference will now be made to the embodiments illustrated and specific language will be used to describe the same . it will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended , with such alterations and further modifications in the illustrated device and such further applications of the principles of the invention as illustrated therein being contemplated as would normally occur to one skilled in the art to which the invention relates . the present novel technology was developed to improve urban response to ehe &# 39 ; s . consequently , the following examples and embodiments to reflect and reference a study area consisting of a large , urban area . this study environment was selected such that the large , urban area has experienced an extreme heat event . furthermore , this particular urban area was selected in part because for the time of the extreme heat event there was available associated population data and landsat tm imagery data . as such , ehe &# 39 ; s are naturally occurring and infrequent , and not inherently reproducible in a controlled laboratory environment , this study is frequently referenced herein . however , it should be kept in mind that the present novel technology is broadly applicable beyond the specific details and characteristics of the study embodiment referenced herein . census data are derived at the block group level following the socio - economic characteristics of vulnerability ( such as : hispanic population , black population , asian population , native american population , other race population , age 65 and over , age 65 and living below poverty , age 5 and under , population living below poverty , low education , and the like ) to extreme heat . estimates of population are derived by normalizing the total population by the area of residential land use within each block group . the area of residential land use within a block group may be determined through any number of methods including satellite imagery , aerial survey , and the like . the area of residential land use is typically selected over other possible values , such as total block group area , because it provides a truer indicator of residential density within each block group . this is to say that it provides a more accurate description of the residential density within each block group . however , any convenient relevant value may be chosen heat related fatalities for the area in question is obtained . the data is typically filtered to only include those deaths that occurred during the previously mentioned extreme heat event . the addresses of those qualified decedents are then assigned geographic identifies ( hereafter geocoded ). additionally , the deaths within each block group are totaled to produce a dataset representative of block group level ehe mortality . typically , the landsat thermal mapping ( hereafter tm ) imagery is acquired for the time period in question . the thermal band of the image is then converted to an at - satellite brightness temperature per the following equation , where t is an estimate of land surface temperature in kelvin . k2 is the calibration constant for temperature in kelvin and k1 is the constant for radiance in mwcm 2μm − 1 . l w is the spectral radiance in mwcm 2 , calculated from the digital number values of the landsat tm thermal band . typically , t is then averaged by block group . this is done to determine the mean estimated land surface temperature per block group . the average t values are then uniformly stratified into the number of different levels desired . the typical spatial analysis method is the standard deviational ellipse ( sde ). it is a well known method and highly suited for point patterns . the end result of this analysis is the assignment of a weight to each of the descriptive variables . for example , in the most simple case , the variables found to be highly descriptive of the data are assigned a weight of 1 ( one ) while those not found so are assigned a weight of 0 ( zero ). the calculation of the sde is reasonably uncomplicated and many current gis applications allow for its use . the sde first requires that the centroid of each block group be calculated and the demographic measures , decedents and t measures respectively be assigned . typically , a weighted mean center of the point set will also be calculated as part of the calculation of the sde . use of the weighted mean center provides a better descriptor of vulnerability than a non - weighted mean center . the weighted mean center is obtained by averaging the coordinates of all the points and providing a weight to each based on an attribute variable of interest . after the mean center is calculated , each point is then transformed into a different metric space referenced from the mean center . the equation for this transformation is x ′ j = x j − x weighted mean center with the y transformation essentially being the same equation . the angle of rotation from the transformed points is calculated by the standard distance on x and y are then calculated as δ x =√{ square root over (( σ i − 1 n ( x ′ i cos δ y =√{ square root over (( σ i − 1 n ( x ′ i sin θ x , θ y , x weighted mean center , y weighted mean center , and area are used to quantitatively compare the spatial distributions of all the variables . standard t - test and f test are used to determine the levels of spatial similarity . this in turn indicates the importance of the actual variables when describing the real data . additional evaluations of the variables and their importance in describing the data are achieved through evaluation of concentration and eccentricity . a death concentration value is calculated within the spatial distributions of t . eccentricity values are calculated as θ x / θ y . the concentration value describes the level of concentration of the spatial phenomena and the eccentricity indicates the polarity of the point distribution within the ellipse . with respect to a variable , the greater the concentration of death and / or smaller eccentricity , the greater coverage of that variable &# 39 ; s descriptive capability with respect to the actual data . typically , a multiple regression modeling technique is used . first , all non - zero weighted variables are interpolated to standard sized cells covering the study area using a kernel density function . after calculation of the kernel density , the mean value per block group residential area is calculated . the non - zero weighted variables are evaluated for multi - collinearity . if needed , any collinearity is removed . a mapping of the kernel density of real death points ( the actual data ) is performed . a multiple regression utilizing the non - zero weighted variables and t as the independent variables is performed , with density of ehe death being the dependent variable . outputs of the regression are generated , forming standardized predictive values of risk . these values are mapped at the census - block group level with decedent locations as the validation layer . the standard r 2 test ( a test that determines what fraction of the total squared error is attributed to the model ) or the like may be used to determine the effectiveness of the model in explaining the variation of the dependent variable . following a significant r 2 value , the models outputs can be viewed as spatially predictive values of future risk . maps depicting spatial variation of risk , typically through a 3 - d map with the y axis representative of relative risk or the like of the city can be created . in the event of an extreme heat event or a predicted extreme heat event , health care professionals concentrate intervention measures into areas denoted as at high risk . while the invention has been illustrated and described in detail in the foregoing description , the same is to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive in character . it is understood that the embodiments have been shown and described in the foregoing specification in satisfaction of the best mode and enablement requirements . it is understood that one of ordinary skill in the art could readily make a nigh - infinite number of insubstantial changes and modifications to the above - described embodiments and that it would be impractical to attempt to describe all such embodiment variations in the present specification . accordingly , it is understood that all changes and modifications that come within the spirit of the invention are desired to be protected .	6
fig1 shows an antenna mount 10 according to an embodiment of the present invention , while fig2 shows an exploded view of the antenna mount 10 . generally , the antenna mount 10 includes a front plate 40 , a back plate 50 , a separator 30 and a rotator 20 . as best seen in fig2 , front plate 40 has a pivot bore 45 formed through the thickness of the plate at an upper region thereof , and two parallel bores 46 , 48 formed through the plate and near the bottom corners of the plate . preferably , though not necessarily , the upper end of the front plate 40 has a rounded contour 42 . the structure of the back plate 50 is similar to that of the front plate 40 in that the back plate 50 also has a pivot bore 55 extending through the thickness of the plate and a pair of parallel bores 58 ( only one shown in fig2 ) formed through the plate near the bottom corners thereof . additionally , back plate 50 also includes two additional pairs of bores 52 , 54 and 56 ( only one shown in fig2 ). as illustrated in fig2 - 5 , the separator 30 has a shallow hole 33 formed at the center of the top surface thereof , and a pair of parallel bores 34 , 36 extending through the separator 30 in the direction “ ts ” ( fig1 ). the bores 34 , 36 of the separator 30 , the bores 46 , 48 of the front plate 40 and the bores 58 of the back plate 50 are formed so as to become aligned to form one continuous bore when the separator is sandwiched between the front and back plates . a seat 35 having a cylindrical bottom portion and a concave disc portion 38 is affixed in the separator with the cylindrical portion fitted into the hole 33 and the concave disc 38 flush with or having an outer periphery thereof sitting directly on the upper surface of the separator 30 . optionally , the concave disc portion 38 may include a lip around the periphery of the disc . rotator 20 , as best seen in fig3 - 5 , is generally shaped like an upside - down “ l ,” with the horizontal portion being formed as a mounting platform 22 and the vertical portion forming a pendulum section 24 of the rotator . the lower end 26 of the pendulum section 24 preferably has a rounded contour to allow the rotator to rotate as will be described further on in this description of the invention . a threaded antenna bore 23 is formed through the overhanging plane of the mounting platform 22 for engaging the base portion of an antenna ( not shown ). although it is preferable to have the threaded antenna bore 23 formed all the way through the mounting platform 22 , it is not necessary to do so , as the threaded antenna bore 23 may be formed only partially through the mounting platform 22 . furthermore , the present invention may be provided with other suitable types of mechanisms or arrangements instead of a threaded antenna bore 23 , for securing an antenna to the rotator 20 , such as a clamp , matingly shaped connectors on the antenna and the rotator , adhesives , etc . in addition to the antenna bore 23 , rotator 20 also provides a spring bore 25 formed centrally through the entire length of the pendulum section 24 and which is threaded at the top end 28 thereof . a pivot bore 27 is formed perpendicularly to spring bore 25 , along the direction “ t r ” through the pendulum section 24 . a pin bore 29 is formed perpendicularly to both the spring bore 25 and pivot bore 27 , along the direction “ w r ” of the pendulum section 24 . both pivot bore 27 and pin bore 29 intersect and pass through spring bore 25 , but are spaced apart from each other along the length “ l r ” of the spring bore 25 with pin bore 29 being positioned slightly below the pivot bore 27 . although the pin bore 29 is described in the exemplary embodiment as extending along the direction “ w r ” of the pendulum section 24 and perpendicular to the pivot bore 27 , it is not necessary to orient the pin bore 29 in this manner . alternatively , pin bore 29 may be formed parallel to the pivot bore or along any other desired angle to pivot bore 27 , as long as the pin bore 29 is located below the pivot bore 27 . furthermore , the pin bore 29 is shown in the figures as extending through the entire width of the pendulum section 24 , but it can be formed to be shorter as long as it intersects and passes through the spring bore 25 . as can be seen from fig2 and 6 - 7 , a spring and piston assembly are placed in the spring shaft 25 with the tip 76 a of the piston 76 protruding from the rounded bottom of the pendulum section 24 . the bottom end of spring 74 contacts or may be frictionally fit around the cylindrical portion 76 b of the piston 76 . both the diameter of the cylindrical portion 76 b of piston 76 and the outer diameter of the spring are sufficiently smaller than the diameter of the spring bore 25 so that the spring 74 can be compressed freely without being frictionally hindered by the wall of the spring bore 25 . the spring bore 25 may be formed with a shoulder or fitted with a snap ring at the bottom opening , which enables the tip 76 a of the piston to protrude from the end of the spring bore 25 while preventing the piston 76 and spring 74 from slipping out of the spring bore 25 . the spring 74 has a natural length at least equal to the length measured from the bottom of the spring shaft 25 to the pin bore 29 . a pin 82 is inserted into the pin bore 29 across the top of spring 76 to thus prevent the spring 76 from extending or being pushed up into the region of the pivot bore 27 . the spring bore 25 is closed off at the top by a cap 78 screwed into the threaded portion at the top of the bore , so as to prevent debris from entering the bore . assembly of the antenna mount is achieved by aligning the bores 46 , 48 , 34 , 36 , and 58 of the front plate 40 , separator 30 and back plate 50 , respectively , and joining these three pieces together with a pair of bolts 84 , 86 through the pair of continuous bores formed by the aligned pairs of bores through the front and back plates and the separator . when joined together , the front and back plates and the separator form a u - shaped frame . the rotator 20 , which has the spring 74 , piston 76 , pin 82 and cap 78 appropriately assembled in the spring bore 25 , is then placed between the front and back plates in the u - shaped frame , with the piston 76 resting on the concave surface 38 of the seat 32 and the mounting platform 22 of the rotator 20 overhanging the ( rounded upper end of ) front plate 40 . the rotator 20 is secured to the frame by pushing down slightly on the rotator 20 to align the pivot bores 45 , 27 and 55 , and then inserting a shaft 72 into the aligned pivot bores . the diameters of the shaft 72 and the pivot bores 45 , 27 and 55 are preferably dimensioned so that the shaft 72 is frictionally fitted into the bores 45 and 55 of the front plate 40 and the back plate 50 , respectively , while the diameter of the pivot bore 27 in the rotator is slightly greater than that of pivot bores 45 and 55 so that rotator 20 can pivot readily around the shaft 27 . optionally , the ends of the shaft 27 may be even more securely affixed in the bores 45 and 55 using adhesives , welding , and / or other means . also , the diameters of bores 45 and 55 can be made to be equal to the diameter of bore 27 , perhaps for simplifying the manufacture of the component parts in the device . when the rotator 20 is pushed down on the separator 30 and then held in this position by the shaft 72 , the spring 74 becomes slightly compressed and the piston 76 is pressed against the concave surface 38 of the seat 32 . by biasing the piston against the seat 32 , this position of the rotator 20 becomes particularly stable and requires a predetermined amount of force to move the rotator 20 out of this position , which depends on the spring constant k . the higher the spring constant k , the “ stiffer ” the spring becomes , which causes the piston 76 to press harder against the seat 38 , which in turn requires a greater force to overcome this force to push the piston 76 off the seat 38 . if the seat 38 is formed with the optional lip around the periphery thereof , the piston engages the seat even more stably . when the piston 76 is in this stable arrangement with the seat 38 , the rotator 20 , and hence any antenna mounted in the antenna bore 23 , are in the upright position . when an antenna is mounted in the antenna mount 10 and the antenna encounters an obstruction or lateral force sufficient to overcome the bias force of the spring 74 pushing the piston 76 against the seat 38 , the piston 76 is pushed off the seat 38 as the rotator pivots around shaft 72 in the direction of the force . the amount of force required to disengage the piston can be tailored to a desired or predetermined level by using a spring having the appropriate spring constant k . once the piston is disengaged off the seat 38 , the antenna falls to a horizontal position to safely clear the source of the lateral force without bending or breaking the antenna . the antenna can be easily restored to the upright position by raising the antenna until the piston “ snaps ” back into position on the seat 38 . as shown in fig8 and 9 , the rotator is capable of pivoting either clockwise or counterclockwise around the shaft 72 . such capability is advantageous in that when the antenna mount is mounted to a vehicle , the antenna can be protected from breakage upon encountering any obstacle , no matter if the vehicle is moving forward or backward . the antenna mount may be constructed of an anticorrosive and lightweight but sturdy material , such as aluminum or aluminum alloys , or a high tensile strength industrial plastic . the sturdy design of the antenna mount easily enables the device to accommodate the 15 - 20 + ft . height of military antennas and to withstand harsh and abusive environments and conditions , while the relatively simple structure reduces the possibilities for failure or breakage , and are easy to maintain and / or repair should it become necessary . a military vehicle will often require the use of several antennas , thus requiring that several of the antenna mounts be affixed to the vehicle . a typical arrangement for securing the antenna mount to the vehicle is shown in fig1 . the frame 90 is a part of a telescoping antenna base which is raised to receive and transmit signals . the frame includes a plurality of brackets 60 , as also shown in fig2 . each bracket 60 includes a plurality of throughholes 62 , 64 , 66 , 68 for screwed or bolted to the back plate 50 of the antenna mount . for this purpose , back plate 50 also includes a corresponding set of throughholes 52 , 54 , 58 ( one note shown ) formed in alignment with the positions of the throughholes formed in the bracket 60 . preferably , each bracket 60 also includes a pivot bore 65 formed in alignment with the bores 55 , 27 and 45 of the back plate 50 , the rotator 20 and the front plate 40 . with the pivot bore 65 , the pivot shaft 72 may be inserted beyond the back plate 50 into the bracket 65 , which provides for even more stability in securing the antenna mount to the vehicle and in supporting the weight of the antenna . although the present invention has been described in relation to particular embodiments thereof , many other variations and modifications and other uses will become apparent to those skilled in the art . it is preferred , therefore , that the present invention be limited not by the specific disclosure herein , but only by the appended claims .	7
in one embodiment of the present invention , a novel coupled clamping technique is shown which ensures multi - clamp triggering . the novelty of this embodiment is the coupling of the trigger gates of the separate clamps through low - ohmic connections , such as metal lines , or preferably feeding the triggering signal simultaneously to the trigger gates of the different clamps , or preferably making the anode and / or cathode of the clamps in the same active well , so as to ease the triggering of a network of clamps . the invention relates to the principle in which , when one certain esd clamp triggers , it enables or triggers another esd clamp or a group of other esd clamps . when applying this technique to a number of esd clamps in a certain ic protection scheme , all those clamps will trigger nearly simultaneously , therefore limiting the potential differences on the whole ic . this is very advantageous for an esd protection strategy , especially against charged device model ( cdm ) stress , where it is critical to limit voltage drops anywhere on the ic as fast and efficient as possible . this is critical because for instance the capacitance related to two different power domains can be quite different so that large voltage differences can be built up during the discharge of a cdm event . if the power clamps related to these different power domains trigger together , this problem is less severe . referring to fig2 a generic representation of the invention is shown illustrating different possible schematics 200 for interconnecting esd clamps to provide simultaneous triggering . there are a number of clamps ( n ) 202 which are interconnected in order to trigger each other . the anodes and cathodes ( not shown ) are connected to nodes ( n ) 204 such as node 1 , node 2 , node 3 and node 4 . they are connected preferably to different protected nodes ( n ) 204 , as well as the same nodes ( n ) 204 as illustrated in fig4 a and fig4 b respectively . so , the clamps 202 can be preferably be connected between any possible nodes 204 . they can have separate nodes 204 or common nodes 204 , or a combination of both . whenever one clamp 202 triggers , it provides a voltage or current to the other clamps 202 it is connected with to trigger those other clamps 202 . principally when a first clamp triggers , a part of the current will be tapped and used as a ( current ) signal or converted to a ( voltage ) signal which enables a second clamp to trigger , as well as any number of other clamps . in one example , the clamps are the power clamps of different power domains . there are several implementations possible . in the case of ground gate negative - channel metal oxide semiconductor ( ggnmos ) based clamps , they can be connected in a fashion as used with enhanced multi - finger triggering techniques as like domino - triggering . in the case of scr clamps , their triggering gates g 1 or g 2 can be connected together . this can by done by hard wiring them with metal liners , or by placing the anodes of the scr clamps in the same well , or by placing the cathodes of the scr clamps in the same well . this is shown in fig3 as described in detail below . this invention is not limited to these two cases , which are only meant to illustrate the concept . fig3 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram of different possible schematics for connecting scr clamps with enhanced coupling technique in another embodiment of the present invention . referring to fig3 an esd protection circuit 300 is shown , having a first scr clamp 302 and a second scr clamp 304 . scr clamp 302 includes a first anode 306 coupled to a first voltage potential vdd 308 connected to a pad of the circuitry ( not shown ) and a first cathode 310 coupled to a second voltage potential vss 312 preferably connected to ground ( not shown ). also , a first trigger tap g 1 a 314 connected to a triggering device / element ( not shown ) is disposed proximate to the first cathode 310 and a third trigger tap g 2 a 316 is disposed proximate to the first anode 306 as shown in fig3 . additionally , a first resistor rg 1 a 318 is connected parallel to the first cathode 310 and a second resistor rg 2 a 320 is connected parallel to the first anode 306 . similarly , scr clamp 304 includes a second anode 322 coupled to the vdd 308 and a second cathode 324 coupled to the vss 312 . also , a second trigger tap g 1 b 326 connected to a triggering device / element ( not shown ) is disposed proximate to the second cathode 324 and a fourth trigger tap g 2 b 328 is disposed proximate to the second anode 322 as shown in fig5 b . fig5 c illustrates connecting the first trigger tap g 1 a 314 to third trigger tap g 2 a 316 and connecting second trigger tap g 1 b 326 to fourth trigger tap g 2 b 328 . note that this circuit shown in fig3 is not limited to two clamps , but can be applied to any number of clamps . although , the first trigger tap g 1 a 314 and second trigger tap g 1 b 326 are shown as two separate trigger taps , however , they are essentially one trigger tap g 1 . similarly , the third trigger tap g 2 a 316 and fourth trigger tap g 2 b 328 are shown as two separate trigger taps , but the are considered essentially one trigger tap g 2 . moreover , the scr &# 39 ; s can have a trigger element apart from the shared trigger line , i . e . an external on - chip triggering devices 315 , 317 , 327 and 329 coupled to the trigger taps 314 , 316 , 326 and 328 respectively as shown in fig3 . an example of this could be a number of ggnmos triggered scr clamps ( ggscr &# 39 ; s ) where the ggnmos is connected between g 2 tap and ground of any or some scr &# 39 ; s and where the g 1 tap of any scr is connected to g 1 of any other scr . or , a number of ggscr clamps where the ggnmos is connected between g 2 and ground of any or some scr &# 39 ; s , and where the g 2 tap of any scr is connected to g 2 of any other scr . referring to fig3 ( a ), for example , let &# 39 ; s consider the two scr devices 302 and 304 . the trigger taps / gates g 1 a 314 and g 1 b 326 of both scr &# 39 ; s 302 and 304 respectively , are connected together . when the first scr 302 now triggers due to an esd event , a certain voltage will occur at the g 1 a 314 node . due to this voltage drop , some current will be able to flow to the g 1 b 326 node of the second scr 304 . this current will forward bias the g 1 b 326 - cathode 324 diode of this scr 304 , thus triggering it . if the g 1 a 314 - g 1 b 326 connection 330 is fabricated from low ohmic connection , preferably metal lines , the current will flow through the metal lines . if the scr &# 39 ; s have a shared pwell , carriers generated from the first scr 302 in the pwell will also trigger the other scr 304 . note that all of this can also be done by alternatively by connecting the g 2 gates of scr &# 39 ; s together with a low ohmic connection 330 in the same fashion as shown in fig3 b . furthermore , in another alternative embodiment , both g 1 nodes of scr 302 and g 2 nodes of scr 304 can be connected with low ohmic connection 330 as shown in fig3 c in order to stimulate triggering of the clamps . this technique can be applied to any number of scr &# 39 ; s . a possible problem that could occur with this technique is that the voltage which is built up by the triggered element is not high enough to trigger a neighboring device . in this case , some boost circuitry can be inserted into the schematic . this boost circuit causes the trigger voltage to increase , thus triggering other scr &# 39 ; s more easily . depicted in fig4 are some possible implementations of this boost circuit as described in detail below . referring to fig4 , there is illustrated a schematic diagram of different possible schematics for connecting scr clamps of fig3 with an enhanced multi - fingering technique in an alternate embodiment of the present invention . in fig4 ( a ), a first boost circuit 402 a connected in series with the first cathode 310 of the first scr 302 and a second boost circuit 402 b connected in series to the second cathode 324 of the second scr 304 . when the first scr 302 triggers , the boost circuit 402 a will have a certain voltage drop over it , thus effectively increasing the voltage on node g 1 a 314 . this increased voltage will ease triggering of the other scr 304 . alternatively , as shown in fig6 ( b ), only one boost circuit 402 is connected in series with the g 1 a 314 - g 1 b 326 . this circuit amplifies the signal coming from one scr 302 or 304 , boosting the other scr 304 or 302 respectively . the amplifier can be constructed to operate in a single direction as well as to operate in both directions . note that although , not shown more implementations are possible , for example where a boost circuit 402 would be connected in series with the vdd line and the anode of each scr 302 and 304 . a possible practical implementation of fig4 ( a ) can be found as an alternative embodiment in fig5 of the present invention . the boost circuit 402 is here a diode 404 as shown in fig6 a or a string of diodes 404 as shown in fig6 b . when an scr 302 or 304 is inactive ( high resistive state ), no current will flow through its series diode ( s ) 404 , thus no voltage drop will exist over the diode ( s ) 404 . when an scr 302 or 304 is active ( low resistive state ), high esd current will flow through the scr and it &# 39 ; s series diodes 404 . in this case , every diode 404 will build up by approximately 1v . the voltage on the g 1 connection line will be boosted by 1v * number of series diodes . ( i . e . 1v multiplied by number of series diodes ). this condition will facilitate the triggering of other scr &# 39 ; s . in order to tune the performance of the whole circuit , the number of diodes can be altered . one skilled in the art will also understand that this boost circuit 402 could also comprise one of the devices such as a mos , resistor , capacitor , inductor or any other device that has a resistance also , each of the boost circuit 402 may preferably be included in only one of the scr fingers or in any possible combination of two or more scr fingers . it is to be noted that coupling multiple clamps ( as described above ) can preferably be used , for example , in multiple scr fingers to simulate synchronous triggering of the clamps . in another embodiment of the present invention , there is shown that the problem of triggering is not only with different clamps but also in one clamp , provided by a multi - fingered scr esd protection circuit as described herein below . fig6 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram embodiment of a multi - fingered scr esd protection circuit 600 of the present invention which serves as protection circuitry for an integrated circuit ( not shown ). similar to fig1 b , the scr circuit 600 comprises multiple scr fingers , and is illustratively depicted in fig6 having three scr “ fingers ” 102 , 104 and 106 . the scr protection circuit 600 comprises first scr 102 ( i . e . “ first finger ”), a second scr 104 ( i . e . “ second finger ”) and a third scr 106 ( i . e . “ third finger ”). the first scr 102 further comprises pnp transistor and an npn transistor . in particular , the first scr 102 includes at least one anode 108 , as known in the art , is one interspersed high - doped first region formed within a first lightly doped region . the anode 108 is connected to a first voltage potential , preferably a pad ( not shown ) and to one side of a resistor r 1 114 . the resistor r 1 114 represents the resistance of the n − well ( or an external resistor ), which is seen at the base of the pnp transistor of the scr 102 . also , included is a at least one cathode 112 , as known in the art , is a interspersed high - doped second region formed within a second lightly doped region . the cathode 112 is connected to a second voltage potential , preferably ground ( not shown ) and to one side of a resistor r 2 110 . the resistor r 2 110 represents the resistance of the p − well ( or an external resistor ) which is seen at the base of npn transistor 106 . furthermore , the circuit 600 comprises a boost circuit 602 connected to the cathode 112 or alternatively to the anode 108 as shown in fig6 . the boost circuit provides an additional voltage drop at a trigger tap ( 116 or 118 in fig6 ) as the trigger current runs through the boost circuit . the boost circuit 602 of fig6 may preferably be one or more diodes 702 as shown in an alternate embodiment of a multi - fingered scr esd protection circuit 700 in fig7 . one skilled in the art will also understand that this boost circuit 602 could also comprise one of the devices such as a mos , resistor , capacitor , inductor or any other device that has a resistance the second and third scrs 104 and 106 are formed exactly in the same manner as described with regard to the first scr 102 . as shown in fig6 , a first triggering device ( not shown in the figure ) represented by a node g 1 116 is connected to the cathode 112 for supplying current to each of the scr fingers 102 , 104 , 106 . alternatively , there may be included a second triggering device represented by a node g 2 118 connected to the anode 108 . such that the voltage drop seen by all anode / g 2 respectively g 1 / cathode diodes is the same . referring to fig6 where the boost circuit 602 is connected to the cathode 112 , in this case scenario , the g 1 node 116 will be pushed higher with respect to ground . therefore , fluctuations in g 1 - cathode voltage will be relatively smaller . since the g 1 node 116 will be pushed higher , the current will be uniformly distributed over all the cathodes . in other words , the current flowing through the boost circuit 602 at the cathode 112 of the scr finger 102 will build up enough voltage to be more uniformly distributed over all the other scr fingers 104 and 106 to trigger . also , as g 1 node 116 has a higher potential , more current will flow through the r 1 110 resistor . since more current will flow through the r 1 110 resistor , less current will initially flow through the cathode of the scr . this gives the other fingers more time to trigger , relaxing the multifinger triggering issue . note that although not shown here , g 2 connections 118 can be also made . anyone skilled in the art will understand that pushing g 2 118 lower by adding a boost - like circuit 602 between the first voltage potential ( not shown ) and anode 108 will create a similar effect . it is important to note that each boost circuit 602 may preferably be included in only one of the scr fingers or in any possible combination of two or more scr finger . in a further embodiment of the present invention , there is proposed a structure 800 illustrated as a cross - section diagram in fig8 a for esd protection , based on scr operation . it can be placed at any pin of a chip ( not shown ). the structure 800 is basically an scr with preferably at least two anodes 802 and 804 or at least two cathodes 806 and 808 . the purpose is if one of the inherent scr &# 39 ; s get triggered , the other scr &# 39 ; s in the structures will tend to trigger as well because all scr parasitics share the same well ( the base of all parasitic bipolars are connected by the well resistance ). this behavior is especially wanted for cdm stress . beside this advantage , the protection structure is also an element that can protect the chip against esd stress along several current paths at the same time . for example , to protect an input pin ( not shown ), placing such a structure could not only protect the chip for stress from input to the first voltage potential vdd 508 , but also for stress from input to the second voltage potential vss 512 . with conventional solutions , two elements were needed to achieve this protection , one element for each current path . alternatively , a generic cross section of the scr structure 800 is shown in fig8 b with three anodes 802 , 804 and 810 and three cathodes 806 , 808 and 812 . an inherent or parasitic scr is shown in dashed line as will be described in greater detail below with reference to fig8 a . note that the number of anodes and cathodes doesn &# 39 ; t need to be three . neither does the number of anodes and cathodes need to be equal . there can for example be two anodes and one cathode , or one anode and four cathodes or any number of combinations can be possible . in order to ensure the desired operation of the invention , additional elements may be added as well . this includes , but is not limited to trigger elements or structures that alter the holding voltage such as diodes in series with the invention . referring back to fig8 a , there is shown another embodiment of the present invention . the structure 800 consists of two p + regions 801 in the same n − well 803 , located next to two n + regions 805 in the p − substrate 807 . this structure comprises 4 parasitic bipolars , bipoloar 1 814 , bipolar 2 816 , bipolar 3 818 and bipolar 4 820 , creating 3 inherent scr &# 39 ; s . the first scr is created by parasitic bipolar 2 816 & amp ; parasitic bipolar 4 820 and exists between vdd 508 and vss 512 . the second one is an scr created by parasitic bipolar 2 816 and parasitic bipolar 1 814 between vdd 508 and a pad 840 . pad 840 represents the bonding pad of an 10 pin ( not shown ). the third one is an scr created by parasitic bipolar 3 818 & amp ; parasitic bipolar 4 820 between the pad 840 and vss 512 . both the second scr and the third scr act as a local clamp here . as shown in fig8 b , anode 1 , 802 is formed in a first n - type region 803 of the n − well 803 and anode 2 , 804 is formed in a second n - type region 803 b of the n − well 803 . similarly , in fig8 b , cathode 1 , 806 is formed in a first p − substrate region 807 a of the p − substrate 807 and cathode 2 , 808 is formed in the second p − substrate region 807 b of the p − substrate 807 . the advantage of this structure is that when one of the three scrs gets triggered , the other ones can trigger as well , if current is supplied to the anodes . for the trigger speed of the different scr &# 39 ; s , the placement of the n + 805 and p + 801 regions is of big importance . one can place both n + 805 regions on one side of the n − well 803 , or one n + region 805 on each side of the well as is shown in fig8 a . both solutions will differ on trigger speed , resistance during conducting state and other factors such as trigger voltage . those who are skilled in the art will know how to design the structure in such a way to get optimal esd performance from it . when one wants to add holding diodes to the structure in order to make the holding voltage higher , this is possible in many different ways . fig9 illustrates a schematic representation 900 of the structure from fig8 a with addition of holding diodes 902 . depicted in fig9 a are the addition of holding diodes 902 . depicted in fig9 b is a possible example where each of the three possible esd paths 904 has two holding diodes 902 in series . the three paths 904 are shown in dashed lines in fig9 b . the protection structure of fig9 represents the one from fig8 a and consists of an scr with 2 anodes 802 and 804 , and two cathodes 806 and 808 . fig9 shows one configuration , but many different configurations are possible . for example the path from vdd 508 to vss 512 can have 2 holding diodes 902 , while the paths from vdd 508 to 10 906 and from io 906 to vss 512 may preferably have no diodes . in this case , the anti - parallel diodes at the io 906 line can be left out . in an even further embodiment of the invention , there is shown a cross - section diagram of the scr structure 1000 in fig1 . it is made by having the invention inherent in an output driver due to parasitic elements . the scr structure 1000 with two anodes and two cathodes is created in an output driver . the structure 1000 is totally inherent to the driver . the layout of this driver can be altered for an optimal working of the structure . both the nmos 1002 and pmos 1004 from the driver stage create the scr &# 39 ; s . by removing the sides of each of p + guardband 1003 and n + guardband 1005 band in between the two mos transistors 1002 and 1004 , a structure that can easily latch is created . the structure has two anodes , formed by the drain and source of the pmos 1004 , as well as two cathodes formed by the drain and source of the nmos 1002 . an scr between out pad 1008 and vss 512 is created and uses the drain of the pmos as anode . another scr between vdd 508 and out pad 1008 uses the drain of the nmos cathode . this embodiment thus shows the intended creation of an scr with multiple anodes and cathodes in an output buffer to create an esd protection structure , which simultaneously works as a power clamp between vdd 508 and vss 512 and as a local esd protection for the output pad . in prior arts , all these parasitic scr &# 39 ; s were seen as a problem for lu ( latchup ) issues . in the present invention , it is a way to create esd protection . to avoid any lu issues using this scr during normal operation of the chip , two approaches can be used . first , the holding voltage of the parasitic scr between vdd and vss can be above the normal vdd voltage . for lv technologies , such as 1v 65 nm cmos , this is easily achieved since second , the trigger current can be increased above the latch up current ( i latch ). this can be done by making the g 2 ( n + in n − well ) to vdd connection and the g 1 ( p + in p − well ) to vss connection low ohmic . in other words , the bulk ties in n − well and / or p − well need to be well placed in order to lower the well resistances . in order to improve the esd capabilities of the inherent scr from vdd to vss , the drain / source regions can be swapped , both for the nmos as for the pmos driver . this would reduce the length anode / cathode ( lac ) spacing of the inherent scr and thus improve its speed lac is the distance between the anode and the cathode . note that this will also affect the performance of the scr &# 39 ; s between vdd and pad , and pad and vss . triggering of the intrinsic scr can be done by adding a trigger circuit 1102 to the bulk ties of mos devices as illustrated in the circuit 1100 of fig1 . fig1 a illustrates adding a trigger circuit 1102 via gate g 2 1104 to the pmos and fig1 b illustrates adding a trigger circuit 1102 via gate g 1 1106 to the nmos . in fig1 , the trigger circuit 1102 preferably consists of four diodes 1202 . however , in general this trigger circuit 1102 can consist of any elements , both passive ( diodes , resistors , inductances , capacitances , etc .) and / or active elements ( mos devices , scrs , etc .). fig1 a shows a possible implementation including the trigger circuit 1102 of fig1 a with four diodes 1108 . fig1 b includes the trigger circuit 1102 of fig1 b with four diodes 1108 . the resistance r 2 of fig1 a and the resistance r 1 of fig1 b can preferably be both intrinsic or externally added . the value of these resistances will determine the trigger current of the scr . making these resistances small will increase the latch up immunity of the clamp . an even further embodiment of the present invention can be seen in fig1 . fig1 illustrates a cross - section diagram consisting of an scr 1300 with two anodes 1302 & amp ; 1304 and two cathodes 1306 & amp ; 1308 . it is used in a chip ( not shown ) with two power domains . the first domain is connected at nodes of a first voltage potential vdd 1 1310 and second voltage potential vss 1 1312 . the second domain is connected to nodes of a third voltage potential vdd 2 1314 and a fourth voltage potential vss 2 1316 . the first and third voltage potentials vdd 1 1310 and vdd 2 1314 respectively , have equivalent values , preferably connected to a pad of the circuitry ( not shown ). the second and the fourth voltage potentials vss 1 1312 and vss 2 1316 respectively , have equivalent values , preferably connected to a ground ( not shown ). when the power clamp activates at one domain , the power clamp at the other domain tends to trigger as well when current is flowing there . for example , this is especially advantageous for a charge device model ( cdm ) event . cdm is know in the art as a model used to simulate a kind of esd - stress . the different power domains on a chip have mostly a different capacitance . this means that during cdm , one domain can discharge faster than another domain . such situation can possibly cause too much voltage difference between power domains on a chip . using the invention , the vdd and vss line of all domains can be clamped tightly together , preventing too much potential difference between them . holding diodes can be added in series with the vdd 1 1310 and / or vdd 2 1314 terminal as desired to raise the holding voltage of the power clamp for a certain power domain . this can be done for each power domain independently . even though , the present invention shows an embodiment with two power domains as shown in fig1 , it can also be applied for chips with more than two power domains . an even further embodiment of the present invention includes a triggering scheme for triggering of the scr as shown in cross section diagram 1400 of fig1 . triggering the structure can happen by sending current through the n − well . in order to be able to do this , an n + region is added to the n − well . the triggering scheme includes the external on - chip triggering device such as a string of two diodes 1402 and 1404 connected in series from the newly created n − well connection to vss 512 . this is similar to the diode triggering scheme of a conventional scr . when the voltage vdd 508 - vss 512 reaches about 3 v , the diodes 1402 and 1404 will conduct and current will flow from vdd 508 to vss 512 through the p +/ n − diode and the two external diodes . this is indicated by dashed line “ 1 ” in fig1 . the voltage at which current starts to flow is dependent on the number of trigger diodes . the trigger current will forward bias the base of the parasitic transistor in the n − well and thus turn on the scr between vdd 508 and vss 512 . triggering can also happen due to an excess voltage on the pad 840 with respect to vss 512 as shown by dashed line “ 2 ” in fig1 . the same trigger mechanism is applied here , only the other parasitic pnp in the n − well gets forward biased now . the p − substrate is connected to vss 512 by a resistor 1406 in order to prevent unwanted triggering by substrate noise , etc . note that this resistor will have influence on the trigger speed of the circuit . a low ohmic resistor will cause slow triggering . a schematic representation of these triggering paths of fig1 is illustrated in fig1 a . the two possible trigger paths marked in dashed line , indicated by “ 1 ” and “ 2 ”. the numbers refer to the same trigger paths as indicated in fig1 . fig1 b a variation of the trigger scheme as an alternate embodiment of the present invention . only trigger diode 1502 is added here between the n − well and the p − well of the invention . there are now three possible trigger paths . the first one is for excess voltage between vdd 508 and vss 512 and is indicated by “ 1 ” similar to fig1 a . the second one is indicated by “ 2 ” and current will flow here for an over voltage between pad 840 and vss 512 similar to fig1 a . an additional third trigger path marked with “ 3 ” will start to conduct current and trigger the structure for excess voltage between vdd 508 and pad 512 . although various embodiments that incorporate the teachings of the present invention have been shown and described in detail herein , those skilled in the art can readily devise many other varied embodiments that still incorporate these teachings without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention .	7
the first form of the hair dressing device a , shown in fig1 - 3 inclusive , may be used selectively either as a comb during the drying of a woman &# 39 ; s hair , or as support for a roller e , to half strands of the hair wound thereon . the roller e is of present day conventional design and includes a cylindrical shell in which at least one row of longitudinally spaced openings e - 1 are formed . if desired , the openings e - 1 may be replaced by a longitudinal slot . the device a is of one - piece construction and is formed by deforming the molded blank a &# 39 ; shown in fig5 . blank a &# 39 ; is molded by conventional present day means , with the blank being formed from a pulverized resin that while rigid , is resilient and may be deformed . pulverized resins suitable for the above purpose are polyethelese , polypropylene , and the like . the blank a &# 39 ; as may best be seen in fig5 includes an arcuate intermediate section b , a first elongate section c , and a second elongate section d . the intermediate section b has a first end 10 and second end 12 . the first end 10 merges into a first elongate handle portion 14 which has an outer end section 16 that is preferably of convex - concave shape . a leg 18 extends outwardly , preferably at an angle from the section 16 , with the leg having a longitudinal slot 20 formed therein . the leg 18 has a first outer end 22 from which an elongate member 24 extends , which member 24 has a number of longitudinal spaced apertures 26 formed therein . the free end of the first elongate member 24 supports a tang 28 that extends downwardly and inwardly towards the leg 20 , as can be seen in both fig1 and 5 . the second section d , includes a second handle portion 30 that extends outwardly from the second end 12 , and the handle portion 30 preferably includes a protuberance 30a adjacent the first extremity thereof . a rod 34 extends outwardly from first extremity 30a , with the rod supporting a second elongate member 36 . the second elongate member 36 , as may best be seen in fig1 and 5 , supports a number of longitudinally spaced teeth 38 . the teeth 38 , as shown in the first form a of the invention , are each defined by at least two parallel elements 38a adjacently disposed but spaced from one another . the spacing of the teeth elements 38a from one another is to provide maximum contact of the teeth elements with a woman &# 39 ; s hair ( not shown ) in the combing of the latter . the intermediate section b , as may best be seen in fig5 is molded to have a first arcuate reinforcing member 40 formed on a surface 42 thereof . second reinforcing lugs 44 also extend outwardly from the surface 42 , with the lugs 44 being separated from one another by v - shaped spaces 46 . the first form a of the device is provided by deforming the blank a &# 39 ; into the configuration shown in fig1 wherein the rod 34 is slidably disposed within the slot 20 , and with the first elongate member 24 overlying the second elongate member 36 . when the first and second members 24 and 36 are so disposed , the teeth 38 extend upwardly through the apertures 26 . to facilitate the formation of the blank a &# 39 ; into the device a as shown in fig1 the slot 20 is preferably of l shape and includes a first transverse slot portion 20a that extends inwardly from a longitudinal edge of the leg 18 to communicate with a longitudinal second slot portion 20b , as can be seen in fig1 . due to the l shape of the slot 20 , the rod 34 may be easily inserted into or removed from the slot . when the blank a &# 39 ; is deformed to provide the first form of the device a as shown in fig1 it will be seen that the first and second lugs 40 and 46 are in abutting contact and serve to reinforce the intermediate section b to the extent that the first and second handle portions 14 and 30 will not move inwardly into contact with one another when the latter are grasped by the hand of a user ( not shown ). when it is desired to removably support the cylindrical roller e on the first form a of the device , pressure is exerted on the protuberance 30a to pivot the second section d to the position illustrated in phantom line in fig2 whereupon the roller e in the form of a cylindrical shell may be inserted between the first and second members 24 and 30 , and as pressure is released from the protuberance 30a the resilience of the material defining the first form a of the invention will cause it to return to the position shown in fig3 . the first form a of the device as it returns to the first position shown in fig3 grips the cylindrical shell e between the first and second elongate members 24 and 30 , with the teeth 38 extending through the apertures 26 . also when the cylindrical shell e is so disposed on the first form a of the device it will be noted that the tang 28 is situated within the confines of the cylindrical shell e and is in pressure contact with the interior surface thereof to assist in maintaining the shell in a fixed position on the invention . an alternate form a of the invention is shown in fig4 which is identical to the form a or the invention shown in fig1 other than each of the teeth 38 is defined by a single prong . the teeth 38 ( fig4 ) are in far greater number than the teeth shown in fig2 . should it be desired , the cylindrical shell e may be modified by forming a single elongate slot ( not shown ) in the wall thereof , in lieu of the numerous openings e - 1 illustrated in fig4 . when the single slot is provided in the shell e , the teeth 30a may be extended upwardly therethrough when the shell is supported between the first and second elongate members 24 and 36 , and tang 28 is in contact with the interior surface of shell e . although the slot 20 is illustrated in the drawings as being of l shape , a single longitudinal slot may be used in lieu thereof , providing the longitudinal slot is a sufficient length and width as to permit the second elongate member 36 and teeth 38 to be extended therethrough , when the blank a &# 39 ; is deformed to define the invention shown in fig1 and 4 . the use and operation of the invention has been previously explained in detail and need not be repeated .	0
referring to fig1 of the drawings , a gas stream containing at least 50 per cent by volume of ammonia is fed along a pipeline 2 to an oxygen - air - fuel burner 4 which fires into a furnace 6 . the gas stream is preferably pure ammonia , but may contain impurities , particularly non - combustible impurities such as water vapour , nitrogen , argon and carbon dioxide . preferably , these impurities constitute no more than 10 per cent by volume of the gas stream containing ammonia . the impurities may also include combustible impurities . in particular , a small amount of hydrogen sulphide may be present . typically , hydrogen sulphide may constitute up to about 5 per cent by volume of the gas stream containing ammonia . up to such levels , the presence of hydrogen sulphide is typically insufficient to require its treatment in , for example , a claus process for recovering sulphur from hydrogen sulphide . a stream of pure oxygen or oxygen - enriched air is supplied along a pipeline 8 to the burner 4 . in addition , the burner 4 is supplied with a stream of air along a pipeline 10 . the gas streams that are sent to the burner are preferably the only gas streams which enter the reaction furnace . the rates of supply of the gas streams to the furnace 6 are selected such that the mole ratio of oxygen molecules to all non - combustible gas molecules ( including oxygen molecules ) supplied to the furnace 6 is in the range of 28 : 100 to 70 : 100 . preferably , this ratio is in the range of 30 : 100 to 50 : 100 . lower ratios make it more difficult to destroy the ammonia ; higher ratios may create difficulties in preventing excessive temperatures from being created in the furnace 6 which might cause damage to it . two main chemical reactions take place in the furnace 6 . the first is the reaction of ammonia and oxygen to form nitrogen and water vapour . the second is the thermal decomposition or cracking of ammonia to form nitrogen and hydrogen . the latter reaction is facilitated by the creation in the flame zone of the burner of relatively hot regions into which oxygen or oxygen - enriched air and ammonia are directed . the stoichiometry of the reaction between ammonia and oxygen is in accordance with the following equation : we have surprisingly found that the total destruction of ammonia without substantial formation of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide ( and its dimer dinitrogen tetroxide ) can be achieved if the rate of supplying oxygen molecules to the furnace 6 is no more than 98 per cent of that required by the stoichiometry of the reaction between ammonia and oxygen . this is shown in fig2 of the drawings . when the rate of supply in oxygen is 128 per cent of the stoichiometric rate required for complete combustion of ammonia , it can be seen from fig2 that the amount of nox ( nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide ) formed is in excess of 2 , 500 parts per million by volume . as the rate of supply of oxygen is reduced so the content of nox in the effluent gas falls to zero at a rate of oxygen supply 98 per cent of the stoichiometric rate required for complete combustion . if the rate of oxygen supply is further reduced to 90 per cent of the stoichiometric rate , the proportion of nox in the effluent gas from the furnace 6 still remains at zero . this indicates that if the rate of oxygen supply is reduced yet further , the rate of nox formation will remain zero . operating with a rate of supply of oxygen molecules in the range of 80 to 90 per cent of the stoichiometric rate for full combustion of ammonia is therefore preferred as it reduces the risk of any fluctuations in the rate of supply of ammonia causing formation of a permanent amount of nox . surprisingly , we have found that at such rates of oxygen supply , the presence of ammonia in the effluent gas stream from the furnace can still nonetheless be avoided . this we attribute to thermal cracking of the ammonia . the reason why a stoichiometric deficit of oxygen creates conditions which are hostile to the permanent formation of nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide is that when there is such a deficit of oxygen the excess ammonia readily reduces any oxides of nitrogen that are transiently formed . referring again to fig1 of the drawings , an effluent gas mixture comprising nitrogen , hydrogen , water vapour and argon leaves the first furnace 6 at a temperature in the range of 1300 ° c . to 1700 ° c . through an outlet 12 . the effluent gas mixture typically contains more than 5 per cent by volume of hydrogen and is therefore readily flammable . if desired , the rate of supply of oxygen and air supplied to the burner 6 can be controlled so as to keep the exit temperature of the effluent gas stream within a chosen range . the effluent gas stream is cooled in a waste heat boiler 14 typically to a temperature in the range of 200 ° c . to 400 ° c . the resulting cooled effluent gas stream then flows into a second burner 16 which fires into a second furnace 18 . oxygen or oxygen - enriched air is supplied along a pipeline 20 to the burner 16 . similarly , air is supplied along a pipeline 22 to the burner 16 . if desired , the burner may be operated slightly sub - stoichiometrically in order to inhibit formation of oxides and nitrogen . as a result of combustion of the effluent gas stream by means of the second burner 16 firing into the second furnace 18 , an effluent gas is formed which is generally suitable for discharge to the atmosphere . if some ammonia is contained in the effluent gas leaving the furnace 6 it is generally desirable to subject this gas to contact with water so as to remove the ammonia intermediate the waste heat boiler 12 and the furnace 18 or to perform this step in a quench tower 24 downstream of the furnace 18 . the resultant tail gas can then be sent from the quench tower 24 to a stack ( not shown ) for discharge to the atmosphere . if desired , most of the quench water may be re - circulated to the quench tower with a small proportion being introduced into , for example , the ammonia pipeline 2 . if the gas stream containing ammonia contains a small amount of hydrogen sulphide , it may be desirable to send the tail gas along a pipeline 26 to a cleaning unit ( not shown ) associated with a claus plant ( not shown ) for the recovery of sulphur from an acid gas comprising hydrogen sulphide rather than to a stack .	1
referring now to fig1 , a typical scenario is envisaged in which an aircraft 10 has a gimbaled countermeasured system 12 which has internal optics ( not shown in this figure ) that establish a two field - of - view system . during the search mode , a wide field of view 14 is illustrated which in one embodiment subtends an angle of 30 °, whereas in a track mode , the system switches to a narrow field of view 16 subtending 3 ° so as to be able to track any detected missile . here a missile 20 is shown having been launched from a shoulder - fired launcher 22 by an individual 24 towards aircraft 10 . at the time the missile is detected as having been launched , the optical center line of the countermeasure system is that which is shown by a dotted line 26 and it is around this optical center line that the narrow field of view extends . when launched , missile 20 is directed along a flight path illustrated by dotted line 28 towards aircraft 10 . when the missile is detected during a search phase in which a wide field - of - view optical system is switched in , the countermeasure system is gimbaled such that its optical center line 26 is moved as illustrated by arrow 30 so as to coincide with the flight path 28 of missile 20 . once this has occurred , missile 20 is within the narrow field of view of the optics of the countermeasure system so that its position in space may be accurately tracked . in one embodiment of this prior art system , tracking involves gimbaling the optical system so as to center missile 20 , or at least the plume thereof , on the crosshairs of the system . the tracking is done with an optical feedback loop that requires high magnification and a narrowed field of view . once the missile has been successfully tracked , countermeasure system 12 emits jamming radiation along its optical axis which then corresponds to the line of flight of the missile . the result is that the countermeasure radiation enters into the reticule or seeker of the missile and causes the missile to fly off or divert from hitting aircraft 10 . as illustrated in fig2 , the system of fig1 first detects the launch of the shoulder - fired missile , as illustrated at 32 . the gimbal of the countermeasure system is then slewed to acquire the threat , as illustrated at 34 . once having acquired the threat or recognizing its existence , the gimbal slews the optical system of the countermeasure unit so as to center the detected threat on the acquisition field of view , as illustrated at 36 . once having centered the threat on the acquisition field of view , the system switches to the track mode which , as will be seen , requires physical rotation or movement of an intermediate lens assembly off the optical center line of the optical system used . this switches the optics to the track mode , as illustrated at 38 , with the gimbaling system utilized to center the threat on the track mode field of view as illustrated at 40 . once having centered the threat on the track mode field of view , jamming radiation is admitted along the optical axis of the countermeasure system , as illustrated at 42 , which arrives at the missile &# 39 ; s seeker , thus confusing the guidance system of the seeker and to cause the missile to miss its intended target . as mentioned hereinbefore , with approximately three seconds to countermeasure a shoulder - fired missile in the typical scenario , if there is any delay in the switching of the optics from a wide field to a narrow field of view , this switching delay may be of such a magnitude that there will not be sufficient time to go through the steps necessary to effectively countermeasure the missile . referring to fig3 , the optical system within the countermeasure system of fig1 , in general includes a fixed objective lens system 50 followed by field changer lens assembly 52 , in turn followed by a eye lens assembly or a relay lens assembly 54 , that images the result on a detector 56 , which in the preferred embodiment is a focal plane array of infrared detectors . the field changer , which at the short focal length of the overall assembly provides a wide field of view , when going into the tracking mode is rotated as illustrated by arrow 58 away from the optical center line 60 of the optical system . the result is that , with the field changer in place along optical axis 60 , the effective focal length of the system is relatively short . however , when the field changer is rotated away from optical axis 60 , the telescopic fixed objective lens system 50 has in one embodiment a focal length which is several times that with the field changer in place . thus in one embodiment , in the tracking mode , the focal length may be several times that of the search mode and with several times the magnifying power . it will be noted that the field changer is rotated out of the optical system through a solenoid or motor 62 . referring now to fig4 , in one embodiment of the prior art two field - of - view system , the objective lens assembly 50 includes a number of lenses 70 , 72 and 74 which constitute fixed lenses mounted to a barrel 76 . intermediate the objective lens and relay lens assembly 54 comprised of lenses 78 and 80 along with a reflector 82 is a movable assembly 52 which corresponds to a field changer . this lens assembly includes a number of highly curved lenses 84 , 86 and 88 in a barrel 90 which also includes lenses 92 and 94 spaced therefrom . it is assembly 52 which is rotated away from center line 60 during the tracking mode such that images are imaged onto a focal plane array 96 , both in the tracking mode and in the search - or acquisition mode . referring to fig5 , for a field - switching optic system , an object 100 is off - axis and is detected in the search or acquisition mode . this object is shifted onto crosshairs 102 by a gimbaling system , with an image 100 ′ shifted during the search or acquisition phase onto crosshairs 102 . here it will be noted that with the field changer , all that changes is the field of view , with images 100 and 100 ′ being approximately the same size . but the crosshair center for the wide field of view , i . e ., the search acquisition center , may be displaced from the crosshair or detector center in the tracking narrow field of view . therefore , the centering process must be repeated , bringing 100 to 100 ′ on the tracking crosshairs 102 . it is these extra steps which are eliminated in fig2 by the subject optical system when using optical distortion techniques to be described and referring now to fig6 , while there are no field changers which involve mechanical moving parts , an object 106 which is off - axis is moved to the crosshairs 108 of the subject foveal optical system . when the object is centered on crosshairs 108 , due to the intentional distortions introduced by the subject system , image 106 ′ magnification is twice that of the off - axis image 106 . in short , the nonlinear system of the subject invention distorts off - axis images and makes them smaller at the edges , whereas when the optics are gimbaled to center the incoming missile on the crosshairs , one has better magnification in the track mode and with better magnification one can track with greater precision in less time with increased reliability . referring to fig7 , the nonlinear or foveal imaging system of the subject invention is described diagrammatically , with the nonlinear imaging lens system having two lenses , 120 and 122 . lens 120 is in essence wrapped tighter at its edges giving the system a distorted field characteristic . thus , for instance , at 5 ° off - axis 124 , an image is focused through lenses 120 and 122 onto focal plane detector array 126 with the effective focal length of the system for this off - axis image , here illustrated at 128 to be , in one embodiment , 44 millimeters . the on - axis focal length 129 is 88 millimeters . in this embodiment the lens distortion yields a 2 : 1 ratio of center - to - edge resolution . in one embodiment , the focal number ( f / no .) of such a lens is 3 . 5 with a focal length of 44 millimeters , an entrance pupil of 12 . 5 millimeters and an image magnification of one - half that of an on - axis object . for an on - axis image , the f number is 3 . 5 with an effective focal length of 88 millimeters and an entrance pupil of − 25 millimeters and an image size of x . as can be seen from the table below this figure , for images 0 °, 1 °, 2 °, 3 °, 4 °, 5 ° off axis , the focal points are geographically depicted on the focal plane detector . what will be seen is that , with the intentionally distorted optics , there is a decreasing magnification from the center to the edge of the lens system . while what is described from a heuristic point of view in fig7 is a nonlinear or foveal lens system , the desired distortion can be achieved in a large number of ways . the tern foveal is used as an analogy to the human eye , where the fovea , a portion of the retina , has better sensitivity and resolution than the surrounding retina . by distorting the optical field as described in this disclosure , greater sensitivity and resolution are achieved by the lens rather than the detector — or in the case of the eye , the retina . one way to achieve the desire distortion is illustrated in fig8 a in which the nonlinear objective lens assembly 130 is comprised of a number of fixed - mount lenses with an objective lens 132 followed by a collimating lens 134 , in turn followed by a mid - lens assembly 136 having a number of highly curved lenses 138 , 140 and 142 . as will be seen from the following prescription , the objective lens assembly 130 functions as illustrated by lenses 120 and 122 of fig7 . the results of the nonlinear transformations provided by the objective lens assembly are relayed by a relay lens group 146 so as to focus images onto a focal plane array 148 which lies in the focal plane of the optical system . for an object which is directly centered on axis 150 , the image is focused at point 152 as illustrated . for an object which is off - axis by 3 °, it is focused on array 148 at focal point 154 . it will be appreciated that the relay lens group includes lenses 156 and 158 as illustrated . referring to fig8 b in which like elements have like reference characters vis - à - vis fig8 a , for an image which is 5 ° off - axis , the 5 ° image focal point is illustrated at focal point 156 . from a lens maker &# 39 ; s perspective , the following formula or prescription describes a foveal 4 - 5 micron objective relay - type 88 millimeter f - 3 . 5 lens assembly from which a lens manufacturer can fabricate the subject nonlinear lens system . here it can be seen that silicon , germanium , ig4 and cleartran compositions are used for the indicated lenses . with such formulation , one achieves optics with barrel distortion in which magnification is greater along the central axis and degrades to one - half magnification at 5 ° off - axis . design # 58 ( preferred design for use with existing dewar ). foveal 4 - 5 micron objective , relay type , 88 mm , f / 3 , 5 cuy thi rmd gla ccy thc glc & gt ; obj : 0 . 00000000 infinity 100 red 1 : 0 . 01268202 5 . 500000 ‘ ig4 ’ 0 100 2 : − 0 . 00819835 11 . 557778 0 0 asp : k : 0 . 000000 kc : 100 ic : yes cuf : 0 . 000000 ccf : 100 a : 0 . 177725e − 05 b : −. 186173e − 09 c : 0 . 000000e − 00 d : 0 . 000000e + 00 ac : 0 bc : 0 cc : 100 dc : 100 3 : − 0 . 01530392 2 . 000000 ‘ cleartra ’ 19 100 4 : 0 . 01530292 17 . 441008 − 19 0 5 : 0 . 10326843 5 . 170451 ‘ ig4 ’ 0 0 6 : 0 . 10714981 4 . 274324 0 0 7 : 0 . 03299645 1 . 500000 ‘ ge ’ 0 100 8 : 0 . 20387696 2 . 200503 0 0 asp : k : − 6 . 499030 kc : 0 ic : yes cuf : 0 . 000000 ccf : 100 a : 0 . 896814e − 03 b : 0 . 385797e − 05 c : −. 283592e − 06 d : 0 . 000000e + 00 ac : 0 bc : 0 cc : 0 dc : 100 9 : − 0 . 02419157 4 . 277991 ‘ si ’ 0 0 10 : − 0 . 07858701 11 . 477519 0 100 11 : 0 . 06230395 2 . 000000 ‘ ge ’ 0 100 asp : k : 0 . 000000 kc : 100 ic : yes cuf : 0 . 000000 ccf : 100 a : −. 523428e − 03 b : 0 . 257150e − 05 c : −. 387508e − 06 d : 0 . 000000e + 00 ac : 0 bc : 0 cc : 0 dc : 100 12 : 0 . 06589881 4 . 966678 0 0 13 : − 0 . 01795340 2 . 000000 ‘ si ’ 0 100 14 : − 0 . 07356390 2 . 552748 0 0 15 : 0 . 00000000 1 . 016000 ‘ si ’ 100 100 16 : 0 . 00000000 0 . 558800 100 100 sto : 0 . 00000000 9 . 372600 100 100 18 : 0 . 00000000 0 . 508000 ‘ si ’ 100 100 19 : 0 . 00000000 1 . 625600 100 100 20 : 0 . 00000000 0 . 091433 100 fim img : 0 . 00000000 − 0 . 091400 100 100 specification data fno 3 . 50000 dim mm wl 5000 . 00 4500 . 00 4000 . 00 ref 2 wtw 1 1 1 ini 58 xam 0 . 00000 0 . 00000 0 . 00000 0 . 00000 0 . 00000 yan 0 . 00000 1 . 25000 2 . 50000 3 . 75000 5 . 00000 wtf 1 . 00000 2 . 00000 1 . 00000 1 . 00000 1 . 00000 vux 0 . 00000 0 . 12663 0 . 30724 0 . 43406 0 . 52308 vlx 0 . 00000 0 . 12663 0 . 30724 0 . 43406 0 . 52308 vuy 0 . 00000 0 . 30508 0 . 59528 0 . 72877 0 . 81759 vly 0 . 00000 0 . 34718 0 . 63353 0 . 75936 0 . 83945 aperature data / edge definitions ca aperture data not specified for surface obj thru 21 private catalog pwl 5000 . 0 4500 . 00 4000 . 00 ‘ ig4 ’ 2 . 618320 2 . 619753 2 . 621295 ‘ ge ’ 4 . 014934 4 . 018646 4 . 023875 ‘ si ’ 3 . 421199 3 . 422511 3 . 424512 ‘ cleartra ’ 2 . 246598 2 . 249547 2 . 252323 refractive indices glass code 5000 . 00 4500 . 00 4000 . 00 ‘ si ’ 3 . 421199 3 . 422611 3 . 424512 ‘ ge ’ 4 . 014934 4 . 018646 4 . 023875 ‘ ig4 ’ 2 . 618320 2 . 619753 2 . 621295 ‘ cleartra ’ 2 . 246598 2 . 249547 2 . 252323 solves red 0 . 000000 fim infinite conjugates rfl − 87 . 9989 bfl 0 . 0914 ffl − 1208 . 0288 fno − 3 . 5000 img dis 0 . 0000 oal 90 . 0000 paraxial image ht 7 . 6989 ang 5 . 0000 entrance pupil dia 25 . 1426 thi − 518 . 9585 exit pupil dia 3 . 2109 thi − 11 . 1466 while the present invention has been described in connection with the preferred embodiments of the various figures , it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications or additions may be made to the described embodiment for performing the same function of the present invention without deviating therefrom . therefore , the present invention should not be limited to any single embodiment , but rather construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the recitation of the appended claims .	6
the method according to the present invention is particularly developed for situations where a small amount of oxidizing hair dye component is taken out of the sachet and the remainder of the hair dye component needs to be safely stored for some additional time . of course this may happen e . g . when short hair is colored and the quantity of hair dye component in a sachet is sufficient for multiple applications , such that after one coloring a second coloring is planned at a later time and the sachet needs to be properly closed until a second application . there is also a usage regime according to which sensitivity to the hair dye component needs to be assessed sufficiently prior to full hair coloring using the hair dye , hence this is another required intermediate storage in an open sachet of the hair dye component after opening of the sachet . such storage in an open sachet may result in oxidized hair dye component due to exposure to air ( respectively the oxygen in air ). the problem with such oxidized component is that it will no longer be available for coloring hair ; it may dilute the available amount of hair color and cause fainting of the intended color result ; also such oxidized hair dye may result in off - colorations due to undesired reactions . the usage regime mentioned above comprises evaluating suitability to use an oxidative hair dye component for coloring the hair of a person without causing an unacceptable skin reaction . this is done by opening the sachet and extracting a minor amount of the oxidative hair dye component from the opened sachet and then applying the oxidative hair dye component to the skin of the person , usually to the skin on the underarm of the person . the minor amount of oxidative hair dye component typically should be less than 20 %, preferably less than 10 %, more preferably less than 7 . 5 % and most preferably 5 % or less by weight of the total amount of oxidative hair dye component in the sachet prior to opening the sachet . after extracting some oxidative hair dye component , it is necessary to close the sachet to prevent oxidation reaction of the hair dye component due to exposure to air oxygen through the opening . the oxidative hair dye component remains on the skin for a predetermined amount of exposure time and is removed afterwards . after a reaction time the skin is visually inspected in the area where the oxidative hair dye component had been applied and it is decided whether the oxidative hair dye component is causing an unacceptable skin reaction or not . provided no unacceptable skin reaction is caused conventional hair coloring using the oxidative hair dye component can progress . the preferred exposure time is at least as long as the recommended usage time of the oxidative hair dye component and in absolute terms at least 10 minutes , preferably at least 20 minutes , more preferably at least 30 minutes . the reaction time in this regime is at least 12 hours , preferably at least 18 hours , more preferably at least 24 hours . in general this time should be sufficient to be confident in light of the components used in the hair dye component that no undesirable skin reactions develop . the method according to the present invention comprises hence two basic steps . in a first step a oxidative hair dye component in a flexible sachet is provided . the sachet has a pouring spout with a re - closure element with stiffness greater than the stiffness of the sachet . thereby it provides capability of re - closing by folding a portion of the pouring spout onto itself and the re - closure element is keeping the folded pouring spout substantially in its folded configuration thereby reducing or preventing premature oxidation of the oxidative hair dye component in the sachet after opening . according to the invention the pouring spout is provided with the re - closure element in a configuration where it is folded onto itself into a re - closed position not just after but already prior to opening the sachet . in a second step the re - closure element is unfolded by a user from its folded re - closure position into an extended position before opening and subsequently allows opening and extracting the oxidative hair dye component from the sachet for the skin test . this provides the person with an experience of the re - closed position of the sachet and guidance how to achieve this properly by having to undo it . this in term increases compliance and accuracy with the re - closure requirement . in a third subsequent step the sachet is reclosed with the re - closure element by folding it onto itself into a re - closed position substantially or exactly as it was provided prior to opening said sachet . a sachet for an oxidative hair dye component according to the invention comprises a reservoir with an internal volume and a pouring spout on the upper side of the reservoir for dispensing , i . e . discharging the hair dye component stored in the reservoir . the pouring spout is preferably not attached but integrally formed with the reservoir and projects with an elongated shape from an upper edge , i . e . upper side of the reservoir . the width of the pouring spout is smaller than the width of the reservoir , whereby the pouring spout can be inserted into a bottleneck of a bottle as second package in a hair coloring kit . an inner flow channel of the pouring spout is in fluid communication with the internal volume of the reservoir . in order to provide a tight seal prior to usage of the hair dye component a removable tear tab is placed at the dispensing end of the pouring spout . as the width of the pouring spout is relatively small , a hair dye sachet with a relatively short tear distance is provided , so that the fingers of the user stay in control during the opening action , i . e . when the tear tab is being removed . in order to remove the tear tab the fingers of one hand rest below the dispensing end of the pouring spout , while the fingers of the other hand remove the tear tab . the hair dye sachet is made of a laminate structure resulting in the flexibility characteristics of the sachet . the laminate structure is chemically resistant to the hair dye component , i . e . the laminate is compatible with the component provided in the sachet . the sachet may be designed as a flat and reclined , i . e . pillow - type pouch , which is easy to store or as an upstanding pouch , i . e . with an upright configuration comprising a base for supporting the sachet in the upright position . a sachet with an upright position is advantageous to handle , in particular , it can be set aside once the tear tab is removed without leakage of the hair dye component . the sachet may be made of one piece of a flexible laminate folded at one longitudinal edge and joined , i . e . sealed together at the remaining open edges and , thereby , providing a so - called “ three - sided seal ”. however , the laminate may also be folded at the two opposite longitudinal edges and sealed at the backside of the sachet and , thus , providing a so - called “ fin - seal ”. the usage of one piece of laminate which is folded at least at one outer longitudinal edge results in a reduction of laminate - material during the production process of the sachet . however , a sachet with a “ fin - seal ” is preferred as the capacity of the sachet relative to its width is increased . further , as the longitudinal edges can be inflated more easily during the filling process , the filling speed of the hair dye compound into the sachet can be increased , as well . however , the flexible sachet may also be made of two pieces of flexible laminate , which are stacked upon each other and joined , i . e . sealed , at their outer circumference . with respect to the reservoir , the pouring spout may be positioned symmetrically , i . e . in the centre , or may be positioned asymmetrically . preferably , the pouring spout is aligned with an outer longitudinal edge of the reservoir that is folded along said edge . generally , the spout , i . e . the width of the spout , comprises a sealing portion and a flow channel portion . a symmetric , i . e . centric spout comprises two sealing portions and one flow channel portion , whereas a spout being aligned with the outer longitudinal edge comprises only one sealing portion and one flow channel portion as the sealing function on the remaining side is provided by the folded edge of the laminate . in order to maximize the flow channel relative to a given spout diameter , a spout aligned with the outer edge is preferred , as it allows a wider flow channel and subsequently an easier dispensing / discharging experience . the hair dye sachet of the present invention is easy to handle and has decreased weight as compared to aluminum tubes . it requires , inter alia , less material as well as reduced amounts of energy for manufacturing and transportation and , thus , meets sustainability and cost - reduction requirements by leaving a reduced ecological footprint vs . conventional aluminum tube packaging . the pouring spout comprises at least one re - sealing element for reclosing the dispensing end once the tear tab has been removed . it is advantageous to provide a reclosing feature in view of the requirement to conduct a skin test 24 hours before applying the ready to use hair color product to the hair . in order to conduct a skin test , the consumer removes a certain amount of the hair dye component out of the sachet and applies it to the skin in order to examine if skin irritation occurs . in addition , some consumers prefer not to use the hair dye component in a single dose , but rather in a split dose , i . e . multi dose , e . g . for hairline dyeing . after conducting the skin test or after removing a certain amount of the hair dye component for other purposes , the consumer is able to reclose the sachet in order to store the content in a safe manner further , exposure of the hair dye component to air , and in particular to oxygen , is limited , thereby protecting the content of the sachet from oxidation . the re - sealing element for reclosing the dispensing end has a stiffness that is greater than the stiffness of the laminate structure . the term “ stiffness ” is defined as the rigidity of the re - sealing element , i . e . the extent to which the pouring spout resists deformation in response to an applied force . in other words , the stiffness is a measure of the resistance offered by the pouring spout to deformation . the rigidity of the re - sealing element provides a tight and secure closure — once the pouring spout is re - closed . alternative mechanical means like snap and seal means or hook and loop means can provide maintenance of the re - closed configuration . the re - sealing element may be integrally formed with or may be attached to the hair dye sachet . the stiffness re - sealing element extends at least partially along the length of the pouring spout and crosses a folding line along which the pouring spout can be folded and flapped towards the reservoir . further , the re - sealing element may also cross over to the reservoir , i . e . extend at least partially along the length of the reservoir . preferably , the pouring spout is re - closable by folding the pouring spout toward the outer surface of the reservoir . due to increased stiffness / rigidity of the re - sealing element compared to the flexibility of the laminate structure , the pouring spout stays in contact with the outer surface of the reservoir and does not flex back . in other words , the rigidity / tension of the re - sealing element keeps the pouring spout in the folded up position . once the hair dye sachet is reclosed , the inner flow channel of the pouring spout is substantially blocked , thereby preventing spillage of the hair dye component and entry of oxygen ( respectively air ) in the opposite direction . preferably , the width of the reservoir is 40 % to 60 %, more preferably between 47 % and 53 % of its height and further preferably , the width of the elongated shape of the pouring spout is 40 % to 100 %, more preferably of 75 % of the pouring spout height . in particular , the reservoir may have a width of 40 mm to 90 mm , preferably 45 mm and 60 mm and more preferably 50 mm and 54 mm the reservoir height is preferably from 110 mm to 160 mm , preferably from 116 mm and 130 mm the pouring spout may have a width of 15 mm to 25 mm and a height of 15 mm to 30 mm . more preferably , the external width of the pouring spout is 16 mm and the internal width of the spout , i . e . of the width of the flow channel is 14 mm the re - sealing element may be a metal strip , plastic strip , band , adhesive clamp , wire tie , rigid non - permanent adhesive bonding tab and / or an additional rigid layer attached to or inserted in the laminate structure . in the alternative hook and loop means or snap and seal means , both providing mechanical attachments to maintain a re - closure position , can be provided . in case the re - sealing element is an adhesive clamp it comprises a tape having one side of the tape coated with an adhesive substance and a clamping strip of foldable non - elastic material attached to the adhesive side of the tape . the other side of the tape is attached to the outer surface of the pouring spout . preferably , the tape is wider and longer than the clamping strip in order to seal a puncture of the laminate structure by an edge of the clamping strip . preferably , the tape and / or the adhesive substance may be transparent so that printings on the outer surface of the pouring spout are visible . preferably , the adhesive clamp may comprise a printed area over the tape at the area of the clamping strip . preferably , the print comprises at least one folding mark indicating the folding line along which the pouring spout should be folded . preferably , the printed area is non - transparent , and further preferably , slightly larger than the clamping strip to cover and hide the clamping strip when viewed from the side of the adhesive clamp . in case the re - sealing element is a wire tie , the wire tie is preferably attached to the outer surface of the pouring spout and extends downwards to and along a specific distance on the outer surface of the reservoir . once the tear tab has been removed and the sachet has to be reclosed , the pouring spout can be folded along the folding line and flapped towards the reservoir . the tension of the wire tie keeps the pouring spout in the folded up position . in case the re - sealing element is an additional rigid layer inserted in the laminate structure would provide a re - sealing element which is not visible to the consumer . according to an embodiment , the tear tab is integrally formed with the pouring spout . preferably , the tear tab is aligned with an outer edge of the pouring spout and extends in orthogonal direction to the outer edge of the pouring spout . this embodiment provides an ergonomic design , which enables the user to open the sachet in a facile manner the sachet exhibits an asymmetric shape and is preferably made of one piece of a flexible laminate folded along one longitudinal edge , the fold forming an alignment of the reservoir , spout and tear tab . in other words , the longitudinal edge forming the alignment has no joint , which would decrease the width of the inner flow channel with respect to a given width of the spout . according to an embodiment , the hair dye sachet comprises a pre - defined tearing line between the tear tab and the dispensing end of the pouring spout along which the tear tab is teared when the sachet is opened . in order to facilitate opening of the sachet , i . e . in order to reduce the force required for tearing , a tearing aid may be provided at the dispensing end . such aid can be selected from tear notch , perforations , laser scoring / cut for tear guidance , orientation of individual material layers , e . g . use of easy tear films such as a polyethylene sealing layer , or use of aluminum as a guidance material , for example . this allows for an easy initiation as well as good control of the tear direction during opening . a tear notch , e . g . in form of a simple cut , triangular cut or semi circular cut creates a focus point for the applied force of the user and facilitates initiation of the tear procedure . however , design of the sachet allows for the use of accessories such as scissors , blades or knifes may be used for opening , as well . accordingly , cutting through the laminate structure of the sachet also results in defined edges . according to an embodiment the pouring spout comprises at its inner perimeter at least one flow restrictor for restricting the flow of the hair dye component when the component dispenses . preferably , the flow restrictor may be provided in case the hair dye component stored in the reservoir has low viscosity , such as liquid hair dye components . by means of a flow restrictor the width of the inner flow channel is narrowed , thus , leading to spill prevention during the opening action as well as to a limited flow rate of the hair dye component when it dispenses . the pouring spout is still adapted to the opening of a second package while providing a flow restriction leading to a mess - free dispensing . in other words , by means of a flow restrictor the same flow velocity can be provided for hair dye compounds with different viscosities . the flow restrictor may have the shape of a recess , indentation , notch or bulge , for instance . the shape , i . e . geometry of the flow restrictor is adapted to the desired flow velocity of the hair dye compound . the flow restrictor is easy to integrate into the pouring spout . preferably , the flow restrictor may be provided by means of removable and exchangeable sealing bars integrated in the manufacturing tools . according to an embodiment , the at least one flow restrictor is formed as a bulge projecting inside the pouring spout . such a bulge projects inside the inner flow channel , thereby limiting the flow - through passage within the pouring spout . according to an embodiment , at least two bulges are formed in a staggered arrangement . the staggered arrangement of the at least two bulges further limits the flow rate of the hair dye component . the bulges may be arranged in an overlapping or in a non - overlapping manner . an overlapping arrangement provides a further limitation of the flow rate . the method of the invention uses a sachet of a specific design which is described in more detail below with reference to illustrative embodiments , wherein : fig1 shows a back view of an embodiment of the hair colorant container ; fig2 shows a front view of a hair colorant container with a snap and seal closure ; fig3 shows the front view of another embodiment of the hair colorant container with a wire tie as a re - sealing element ; fig4 shows the front view of another hair colorant container with a hook and loop tape closure ; and fig5 shows another embodiment of the hair colorant container with a flow restrictor . detailed description of the sachet according to the invention as shown in the embodiments of the drawings fig1 shows a container for a hair colorant component 10 in the form of a flexible sachet 10 for storing a hair dye component or a developer component . the sachet 10 comprises a reservoir 12 with an internal volume 13 , a pouring spout 14 being in fluid communication with the internal volume 13 and having a dispensing end 16 and a removable tear tab 18 . the tear tab 18 is attached at the dispensing end 16 for sealing the sachet 10 before the sachet 10 has been opened . the pouring spout 14 and the tear tab 18 are integrally formed with the reservoir 12 and are aligned at one outer longitudinal edge 30 of the reservoir 12 . the pouring spout 14 projects from an upper side 20 of the reservoir 10 and has an elongated shape with a width 22 being smaller than the width 24 of the reservoir 10 . the tear tab 18 is placed at the dispensing end 16 in a perpendicular manner with respect to the pouring spout 14 . further , the pouring spout 14 comprises a grip zone 26 which extends substantially along the width 22 of the spout 14 and is adapted with its dimensions to the fingers of a user . thus , the user is enabled to open the sachet 10 in an easy manner by clamping the sachet 10 in the region of the pouring spout 14 , namely at the grip zone 26 and thereby providing a spill prevention . by clamping the pouring spout 14 , the fingers of the user act as a temporary valve element . opposite walls of the spout 14 are pressed together thereby substantially preventing the hair dye component from spilling out of the reservoir 12 when the tear tab 18 is being removed . after opening the sachet 10 , the hair dye component can be dispensed which usually is into a second package , like a bottle , comprising the respective other hair colorant component ( oxidizing component or hair dye component , respectively ) to provide a ready to use mixed hair color product . in order to facilitate the removal of the tear tab 18 , a pre - defined tearing line 28 between the tear tab 18 and the dispensing end 16 of the pouring spout 14 is provided . the pre - defined tearing line 28 may be provided by means of a tear notch , perforations , laser scoring / cut for tear guidance , specific orientation of individual material layers , e . g . the use of easy tear films , such as a polyethylene layer , or the use of aluminum as a guidance material , for example . this allows an easy tear initiation as well as a controlled tear direction . the sachet 10 according to fig1 shows a tear notch 36 , which creates a focus point for the applied force of the user and makes it easier to initiate the tear . the width 24 of the reservoir 12 is 65 mm and the height 38 of the reservoir 12 is 110 mm , whereas the pouring spout 14 has a width 22 of 16 mm and a height 40 of 30 mm . the internal width of the spout 14 , i . e . of the flow channel 42 is 14 mm . thus , on the one hand the internal flow channel 42 of the pouring spout 14 is as wide as possible to enable easy and fast dispensing . on the other hand , the spout width 22 is in line with the opening diameter of a second package e . g . a bottle having a defined standard internal neck diameter of 17 mm in which the spout 14 can be inserted to dispense the content of the sachet . the outer perimeter of the pouring spout 14 has a profile that expands to an oval shape when opened . thus , a defined section of the outer wall of the spout 14 does not lie completely against the inner wall of the second package opening e . g . a bottleneck , but leaves a passage open through which air may be released from the inside of the bottle during dispensing / discharging the sachet content . therefore , a fast , complete and mess free dispensing is achieved . when the spout 14 gets inserted into the bottleneck in a most flat condition the angled tear notch cut 36 ensures that the top end of the spout 14 has a width 22 which is narrower than the internal bottleneck diameter . the angled notch 36 allows an easy insertion of the spout 14 . through the docking action , the spout 14 gets pushed against the inner wall of the bottleneck and facilitates the opening of the spout . the sachet 10 is made of a flexible laminate structure 44 which comprises at least three layers , preferably four layers . the laminate 44 of the present embodiment has a thickness of 100 μm to 150 μm and comprises four layers . the first layer facing the inner volume 13 of the sachet 10 is a polyethylene layer and has a thickness of 70 μm to 100 μm . the first layer is produced by means of an extrusion foaming process . the second layer following the first layer has a thickness of 18 μm to 25 μm and comprises polyethylene and ethylene methacrylic acid polymer or polyethylene and ethylene methacrylic acid polymer . the third layer is made of aluminum and acts as a barrier layer . the aluminum layer has a thickness of 9 μm . the first , the second and the third layer are joined together by means of extrusion lamination . such a laminate structure 44 results in sufficient chemical and mechanical stress resistance . the fourth layer is made of polyamide with a thickness of 5 μm or of polyethylenterephthalat with a thickness of 12 μm . the fourth layer comprises a printing applied on the surface facing the aluminium layer and is joined to the third layer by means of adhesive lamination . the laminate structure 44 of the present embodiment shows substantially no corrosion and / or migration of particles of hair dye component , like dye pigments , surfactants and aqueous ammonia solution . the laminate 44 is folded at the two opposite longitudinal edges 30 , 32 of the sachet 10 and sealed at the backside and provide a so - called “ fin - seal ” 34 . as the pouring spout 14 is aligned with the outer longitudinal edge 30 of the reservoir 12 , the spout 14 comprises one sealing portion 46 and one flow channel portion 42 as the sealing function on the remaining side 30 is provided by the folded edge of the laminate 44 . such a design results in a maximized flow channel 42 relative to a given spout width . the sachet for a hair dye components 10 shown in fig2 comprise a re - sealing element 48 , respectively , for reclosing the dispensing end 16 of the pouring spout 14 once the tear tab 18 has been removed . the pouring spout 14 is re - closable by folding and fixing the pouring spout 14 at the outer surface of the reservoir 12 by means of the re - sealing element 48 . once the sachet for a hair dye component 10 is re - closed , the inner flow channel 42 of the pouring spout 14 is substantially blocked , thereby preventing spillage of the hair dye component or entry of air , respectively oxygen . the re - sealing element 48 shown in fig2 is a snap and seal closure 50 , whereas the re - sealing element 48 shown in fig3 is a wire tie 52 and the re - sealing element 48 shown in fig4 is a hook and loop tape closure 54 . according to fig3 , the wire tie 52 is attached at the outer surface of the pouring spout 14 and extends downwards to and along a specific distance on the outer surface of the reservoir 12 . once the tear tab 18 has been removed and the sachet 10 has to be reclosed , the pouring spout 14 can be folded along a folding line and flapped towards the reservoir 12 . the tension / rigidity of the wire tie 52 keeps the pouring spout 14 in the folded position providing proper re - closure . the hook and loop tape closure 54 ( cp . fig4 ) and the snap and seal closure 50 ( cp . fig2 ) consist of two elements 56 , 58 , namely of a male 56 and a female element 58 , wherein one of the elements 56 , 58 is attached at the outer surface of the pouring spout 14 and the other one is attached at the outer surface of the reservoir 12 , respectively . in order to reclose the sachet 10 , the pouring spout 14 is folded along the folding line and is secured at the reservoir 12 . the male and female elements 56 , 58 engage and keep the pouring spout 14 in the folded position . fig5 shows a sachet for a hair dye component 10 comprising a flow restrictor 60 at the inner perimeter 62 of the pouring spout 14 . the flow restrictor 60 is provided in case the hair dye component stored in the reservoir 12 has a low viscosity , such as liquid hair dye components . by means of the flow restrictor 60 the width of the inner flow channel 42 is narrowed , thus , leading to spill prevention during the opening action as well as to a limited flow rate of the hair dye component when it dispenses . the flow restrictor 60 has the shape of two bulges 64 projecting inside the pouring spout 14 in a staggered manner . a hair dye sachet according to fig3 was provided to users who were asked to start to perform a skin test . some were given the sachet with the pouring spout already folded onto itself while others received it unfolded . in discussions amongst these individuals after the initial steps of the skin test it became clearly stated that having the pre - folded configuration increases the user &# 39 ; s urge to unfold the sachet and that draws attention to the spout area . in some comment , it was expressed that it is very hard for users to make the connection how to use the re - closure mechanism without being shown and that having to unfold it prior to opening was providing just the right re - closure indication . it was consensus that the key benefit for having the spout folded down prior to opening is to have an idea registered in users minds that sachet needs to be folded down to reclose it . all users confirmed that this would intuitively strengthen their compliance with the re - closure requirement and ensure accuracy of tight closure thus providing an improved hair coloring result . the dimensions and values disclosed herein are not to be understood as being strictly limited to the exact numerical values recited . instead , unless otherwise specified , each such dimension is intended to mean both the recited value and a functionally equivalent range surrounding that value . for example , a dimension disclosed as “ 40 mm ” is intended to mean “ about 40 mm ” every document cited herein , including any cross referenced or related patent or application and any patent application or patent to which this application claims priority or benefit thereof , is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety unless expressly excluded or otherwise limited . the citation of any document is not an admission that it is prior art with respect to any invention disclosed or claimed herein or that it alone , or in any combination with any other reference or references , teaches , suggests or discloses any such invention . further , to the extent that any meaning or definition of a term in this document conflicts with any meaning or definition of the same term in a document incorporated by reference , the meaning or definition assigned to that term in this document shall govern . while particular embodiments of the present invention have been illustrated and described , it would be obvious to those skilled in the art that various other changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention . it is therefore intended to cover in the appended claims all such changes and modifications that are within the scope of this invention .	1
the invention will be illustrated below in conjunction with an exemplary communication system . although well suited for use with , e . g ., a system using a server ( s ) and / or database ( s ), the invention is not limited to use with any particular type of communication system or configuration of system elements . those skilled in the art will recognize that the disclosed techniques may be used in any communication application in which it is desirable to allow a server to host multiple servlets . the exemplary systems and methods of this invention will also be described in relation to analysis software , modules , and associated analysis hardware . however , to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention , the following description omits well - known structures , components and devices that may be shown in block diagram form , are well known , or are otherwise summarized . for purposes of explanation , numerous details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention . it should be appreciated , however , that the present invention may be practiced in a variety of ways beyond the specific details set forth herein . with reference now to fig2 , an exemplary communication system 200 will be described in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present invention . more specifically , the communication system 200 includes a communication network 104 adapted to interconnect one or more communication devices 108 with an application server 204 . the communication network 104 may be any type of known communication medium or collection of communication mediums and may use any type of protocols to transport messages between endpoints . the communication network 104 may include wired and / or wireless communication technologies . the internet is an example of the communication network 104 that constitutes and ip network consisting of many computers and other communication devices located all over the world , which are connected through many telephone systems and other means . other examples of the communication network 104 include , without limitation , a standard plain old telephone system ( pots ), an integrated services digital network ( isdn ), the public switched telephone network ( pstn ), a local area network ( lan ), a wide area network ( wan ), a session initiation protocol ( sip ) network , any type of enterprise network , and any other type of packet - switched or circuit - switched network known in the art . in addition , it can be appreciated that the communication network 104 need not be limited to any one network type , and instead may be comprised of a number of different networks and / or network types . the communication devices 108 may be any type of known communication or processing device such as a personal computer , laptop , personal digital assistant ( pda ), cellular phone , smart phone , telephone , analog phone , dcp phone , or combinations thereof . a single communication device 108 may be controlled by or be associated with a single user or may be adapted for use by many users ( e . g ., an enterprise communication device that allows any enterprise user to utilize the communication device upon presentation of a valid user name and password ). each of the communication devices 108 may be associated with the same user . in other words , the communication devices 108 may belong to a single user and may correspond to different types of communication devices . as one example , the user may have four communication devices 108 each of which correspond to a personal phone , a work phone , a personal computer , and an email retrieval device , respectively , of a single user . alternatively , each of the communication devices 108 may be owned and operated by ( e . g ., associated with ) a different user . in general , the communication device 108 may be adapted to support video , audio , text , and / or data communications with other communication devices 108 . the type of medium used by the communication device 108 to communicate with other communication devices 108 may depend upon the communication applications available on the communication device 108 . in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present invention , one or more communication devices 108 may send a message , such as a sip message , to the application server 204 where it is received at the server &# 39 ; s network interface 208 . the network interface 208 may include a communication port and / or network adaptor . as one example , the network interface 208 may comprise an ethernet port and an ethernet card / adaptor . as another example , the network interface 208 may comprise an antenna and an 802 . 11 or bluetooth adaptor . thus , as can be appreciated by those skilled in the art , the network interface 208 may support wired and / or wireless connections between the application server 204 and the communication network 104 and may further support multiple communication protocols . the application server 204 may further comprise a sip servlet container 212 for handling messages initially received at the application server 204 . additionally , the sip servlet container 212 may be responsible for transferring sip requests to one or more applications 224 stored on the application server 204 where the requests can be processed in accordance with the functionality of the application 224 . with reference now to fig2 and 3 , messages received at the sip servlet container 212 from the network interface 208 ( step 304 ) may be passed to a root application router 216 ( step 308 ). the root application router 216 may be responsible for coordinating the disbursement of sip messages among the multiple sub - application routers 220 of the application server 204 . more specifically , the root application router 216 may comprise the business rules or logic which define how a particular message or request should be routed among the sub - application routers 220 and may apply such rules ( step 312 ) in identifying a target sub - application router 220 ( step 316 ). even more specifically , the root application router 216 may act as the hierarchical master or message gatekeeper for the sub - application routers 220 . thus , any message that is received at a sub - application router 220 is received via the root application router 216 . in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present invention , however , the sub - application routers 220 are unaware of the root application router 216 and any algorithms executed by the root application router 216 . instead , from the sub - application router &# 39 ; s 220 perspective , the messages are received from the sip servlet container 212 , processed by the sub - application router 220 , and sent back to the sip servlet container 212 , which is adapted to invoke the root application router 216 again to determine if there is another sar 228 in the multi - sar application 224 that should see the request . it should also be noted that a request can match rules for two or more sub - application routers 220 a and 220 b . in this circumstance , when the root application router 216 has determined that a request is to be routed to the sub - application routers 220 a and 220 b , the root application router 216 can pass the request to the first sub - application router 220 a and once the corresponding first application 224 a is done processing the message , the root application router 216 automatically passes the request on to the next sub - application router 220 b . when a sub - application router 220 receives a message ( step 320 ) the sub - application router 220 analyzes the message to determine which application 224 will be responsible for actually processing the message ( step 324 ). accordingly , the sub - application router 220 does not actually process the message itself , but just analyzes information in the message to determine which application 224 will be used to process the message . upon making such a determination , the sub - application router 220 sends the message back to the sip servlet container with an identification of the application 224 to process the message . the sip servlet container 212 receives the message , analyzes the application identification , and forwards the message to the appropriate application 224 . as can be seen in fig2 , the applications 224 may comprise two or more sar files 228 , each containing a servlet , such as a sip servlet . when a message is assigned to a particular application 224 , the sip servlet container 212 invokes the appropriate servlet within a sar file 228 of the application 224 to actually process the message ( step 328 ). as can be appreciated by those skilled in the art , although the applications 224 are depicted as comprising three and two sar files 228 a , 228 b , respectively , an application 224 may comprise a greater or lesser number of sar files 228 depending upon the function of the application 224 . for example , an application 224 may comprise one , two , three , four , or more sar files 228 without departing from the scope of the present invention . an application 224 comprising two or more sar files 228 is referred to herein as a multi - sar application 224 . embodiments of the present invention provide the ability to co - host a plurality of multi - sar applications 224 on a common server 204 , particularly through the use of a root application router 216 . in accordance with at least some embodiments of the present invention , an application 224 provides a general functionality or feature for a sip message . the sar file ( s ) 228 contained within an application 224 contain the servlets which are the processes that execute the steps needed to provide the function of the application 224 . as one example , an application 224 may correspond to a voicemail function . the sar files 228 within the voicemail application 224 may contain servlets which execute processes such as determining that a call should go to voicemail coverage , identifying a location of an appropriate voicemail server , transferring the call to the voicemail server , providing ivr functions to the caller , recording a message from the caller , and storing the message in the voicemail server . of course , some of the voicemail processes described above may be executed as separate sar files on other applications 224 . furthermore , voicemail is but one example of an exemplary function provided by an application 224 . other types of functions provided by an application 224 include , but are not limited to , a call forwarding function , a call routing function , a coverage function , a recording function , a call setup function , a blacklist function , a whitelist function , an incoming call notification function , an end call function , and a bill customer function . other functions made available via an application 224 will become apparent to those skilled in the art and are also considered within the scope of the present invention . when a message is being processed by a servlet within a sar file 228 , the servlet may generate a second message or sip request ( e . g ., a call transfer message in the voicemail application example described above ). thus , in step 332 it is determined whether or not a new request or message has been generated by the servlet due to its processing of the initially received message . if this inquiry is answered affirmatively , then the message is transferred back to the sip servlet container 212 where it can be forwarded to another computational component , which may or may not reside in the application server 204 ( step 336 ). if such a message is generated by the servlet , the second sip message is sent to a computational component without causing the second message to be evaluated by the root application router 216 . once the application 224 has invoked all of its servlets within the sar files 228 and the message has been processed by those servlets or if the inquiry of step 332 is answered negatively , the method continues by determining if there is additional processing required for the first message ( step 340 ). if the message requires additional processing , possibly by another application 224 , then the method returns to step 304 and the message is forwarded to the sip servlet container 212 which subsequently provides the message back to the root application router 216 . if no additional processing is required , then the method ends ( step 344 ). of course , as a part of completing the message processing , the message may be transferred out of the application server 204 via the network interface 208 . as can be appreciated by those skilled in the art , although the application server 204 depicted in fig2 contains two sub - application routers 220 a , 220 b , an application server 204 may comprise a greater or lesser number of sub - application routers 220 in accordance with embodiments of the present invention . likewise , although the application server 204 is depicted as having only two applications 224 a , 224 b , an application server 204 may comprise a greater or lesser number of applications 224 in accordance with embodiments of the present invention . furthermore , the number of sub - application routers 220 does not , and usually will not , match the number of applications 224 in the application server 204 . accordingly , a single sub - application router 220 may be adapted to make a message routing decision between a plurality of applications 228 . in other words , a sub - application router 220 may be adapted to determine whether a message should be sent to a first , second , third , fourth , etc . application 224 for processing and may make different decisions for different messages received at the sub - application router 220 . furthermore , two sub - application routers 220 may be adapted to route a message to a common application 224 ( i . e ., sub - application routers 220 may share an application 224 ), although such an embodiment will depend on a number of other considerations . while the above - described flowchart has been discussed in relation to a particular sequence of events , it should be appreciated that changes to this sequence can occur without materially effecting the operation of the invention . additionally , the exact sequence of events need not occur as set forth in the exemplary embodiments . the exemplary techniques illustrated herein are not limited to the specifically illustrated embodiments but can also be utilized with the other exemplary embodiments and each described feature is individually and separately claimable . the systems , methods and protocols of this invention can be implemented on a special purpose computer in addition to or in place of the described communication equipment , a programmed microprocessor or microcontroller and peripheral integrated circuit element ( s ), an asic or other integrated circuit , a digital signal processor , a hard - wired electronic or logic circuit such as discrete element circuit , a programmable logic device such as pld , pla , fpga , pal , a communications device , such as a server , personal computer , any comparable means , or the like . in general , any device capable of implementing a state machine that is in turn capable of implementing the methodology illustrated herein can be used to implement the various communication methods , protocols and techniques according to this invention . furthermore , the disclosed methods may be readily implemented in software using object or object - oriented software development environments that provide portable source code that can be used on a variety of computer or workstation platforms . alternatively , the disclosed system may be implemented partially or fully in hardware using standard logic circuits or vlsi design . whether software or hardware is used to implement the systems in accordance with this invention is dependent on the speed and / or efficiency requirements of the system , the particular function , and the particular software or hardware systems or microprocessor or microcomputer systems being utilized . the analysis systems , methods and protocols illustrated herein can be readily implemented in hardware and / or software using any known or later developed systems or structures , devices and / or software by those of ordinary skill in the applicable art from the functional description provided herein and with a general basic knowledge of the communication and computer arts . moreover , the disclosed methods may be readily implemented in software that can be stored on a storage medium , executed on a programmed general - purpose computer with the cooperation of a controller and memory , a special purpose computer , a microprocessor , or the like . in these instances , the systems and methods of this invention can be implemented as program embedded on personal computer such as an applet , java ® or cgi script , as a resource residing on a server or computer workstation , as a routine embedded in a dedicated communication system or system component , or the like . the system can also be implemented by physically incorporating the system and / or method into a software and / or hardware system , such as the hardware and software systems of a communications device or system . it is therefore apparent that there has been provided , in accordance with embodiments of the present invention , systems , apparatuses and methods for co - hosting sip servlet applications on a server . while this invention has been described in conjunction with a number of embodiments , it is evident that many alternatives , modifications and variations would be or are apparent to those of ordinary skill in the applicable arts . accordingly , it is intended to embrace all such alternatives , modifications , equivalents and variations that are within the spirit and scope of this invention .	7
preferred embodiments of the present invention are hereafter described with reference to the drawings attached hereto . fig1 - 4 show a fishing rod according to an embodiment of the present invention . the fishing rod includes a posterior member 10 , a tubular member 12 , a butt member 14 , a reel rest 16 , a grip 18 , and a fishline guide 20 . the posterior member 10 and the tubular member 12 are usually formed of a one - piece tube , but the invention should not be restricted thereto or thereby . the butt member 14 is fastened to the posterior member 10 at the rear end thereof . the reel rest 16 is provided on the posterior member 10 at the front end portion thereof , and has a reel foot mounting portion 16s , on which a foot 22a of a reel 22 is mounted so that the reel is located on the top or upper side of the posterior member 10 . the grip 18 is provided on the tubular member 12 in front of the reel rest 16 . the fishline guide 20 is mounted on the tubular member 12 , and extends therefrom upwardly . the reel rest 16 includes a fixed front mounting portion 16a , a movable rear mounting portion 16b , and a nut 16c for securing the movable rear mounting portion . a fishline 24 extending from the reel 22 whose foot 22a is fixed to the reel leg mounting portion 16s is laid through the fishline guide 20 . the grip 18 includes a front portion 18a of large height , an intermediate portion 18b , and a rear portion 18c . since the top 18s of the intermediate portion 18b is flat and lowered in comparison with that of the front portion 18a , the thumb of a hand grasping the intermediate portion 18b of the grip 18 and the portion f1 of the hand , which adjoins the thumb , are located at a relatively large distance down from the fishline 24 so that even if the fishing rod is much flexed downward due to the hooking of a heavy fish , the fishline comes into contact with the top of the front portion 18a of the grip 18 not to descend from the top of the front portion 18a and come into contact with the thumb and the portion adjoining it . the bottom 18u of the intermediate portion 18b of the grip 18 extends obliquely down rearward . that is thickness of the intermediate portion 18b between the top 18s and the bottom 18u is gradually increased toward the rear portion 18c with the top 18s kept horizontally . thus , when the intermediate portion 18b of the grip is grasped with a hand , the thumb and adjoining portion f1 of the hand naturally extend nearly horizontally . accordingly , the fishline 24 is surely prevented from coming into contact with either of the thumb and the adjoining portion even when the fishing rod is flexed downward . since the tubular member 12 is exposed in the top 18s of the grip 18 as best shown in fig3 the lower surfaces of the thumb and adjoining portion f1 of the hand grasping the intermediate portion 18b of the grip are put in direct contact with the exposed portion of the tubular member so that the fishing person can surely feel the bite of a fish . fig5 is a cross - sectional view of a major part of a fishing rod which is a modification of the embodiment , the major part corresponding in location to that shown in fig3 . the difference of the rod from the embodiment shown in fig1 - 4 is that the top of a tubular member 12 is flattened to decrease the height thereof to make a fishline surer not to come into contact with the thumb and adjoining portion of a hand grasping the intermediate portion 18b of a grip . in each of the fishing rods shown in fig1 , 3 , 4 and 5 , the top 18s of the intermediate portion 18b of the grip 18 is located so much below the top of the front portion 18a of the grip and the fishline 24 extending between the reel 22 and the front portion of the grip that the fishline does not come into contact with the thumb and adjoining portion f1 of the hand grasping the intermediate portion of the grip . in each of fishing rods disclosed in the japan utility model applications ( opi ) nos . 107167 / 88 and 102845 / 91 , the top of a grip is only flattened . in the rod disclosed in the application ( opi ) no . 107167 / 88 , the top of the grip is flattened so that a fishing person can hold down a fishline against the flatted top by his thumb in sending the fishline forth . in the rod disclosed in the application ( opi ) no . 102845 / 91 , the top of the grip is flattened in order to make it comfortable to grasp the grip . therefore , the fishing rods essentially differ from the embodiment . fig6 is a side view of a major part of a fishing rod which is another modification of the embodiment . as similarly to the former embodiment , a grip 18 includes a front portion 18a , an intermediate portion 18b , and a rear portion 18c . the difference of the rod from the former embodiment is that a cover 26 is provided over a thumb contact part 18s of the intermediate portion 18b so as to define a space in which the thumb of a hand grasping the intermediate portion 18b and the portion of the hand , which adjoins the thumb , are put . since a fishline comes into contact with the cover 26 at the time of downward flexing of the rod , the fishline is kept from coming into contact with the thumb and the portion adjoining it . since the fishing person is thus freed from being anxious about the possible contact of the fishline with the hand grasping the intermediate portion 18b of the grip 18 , he can concentrate on fishing with the rod . since the fishline is likely to often come into contact with the cover 26 , it is preferable that the top of the cover has no edge and is smooth so as to guide the fishline without causing any damage onto the fishline . the cover 26 may be removably fastened to the grip 8 , and / or may extend over only a portion of the thumb contact part 18s . the fishline guide 20 may be provided on the top of the front portion 18a of the grip 18 in the embodiment , as shown by a two - dot chain line 20a in fig1 to make the fishline surer not to come into contact with the thumb and adjoining portion of the hand grasping the grip . a fishing rod provided in accordance with the present invention includes a reel rest , and a grip located in front of the rest so as to be grasped by a hand . since the top of the grip has a thumb contact part below the top of the front portion of the grip , a fishline does not come into contact with the thumb of the hand and the portion thereof , which adjoins the thumb . if the dimensions of the rod make it impossible to completely prevent the fishline from coming into contact with the thumb and the adjoining portion , a cover is provided over the thumb contact part to enable the complete prevention . since the hand grasping the grip is thus protected from being injured by the fishline , fishing can be done with freedom from anxiety . besides , since the thumb of the hand grasping the grip does not need to be located off the side of the fishing rod , an enough force can be applied by the hand to move the rod up and down .	0
referring to fig1 , 2 and 2 a , a toy building element 10 according to one embodiment of the present invention includes a top 11 , a bottom 12 and four sidewalls 13 . the top 11 of the building element 10 includes a primarily cylindrical projection 14 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 is open . in alternative embodiments ( not shown ) more than one projection extends above the top broad surface . the interior ( not shown ) of the building element 10 has contact surfaces that are accessible through the open bottom and are adapted for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with an interconnectable projection on a second toy - building element . in alternative embodiments ( not shown ) the interior contact surfaces are adapted for effecting releasable restraining engagements with a plurality of interconnectable projections on another toy - building element or on a combination of other toy building elements . in the preferred embodiments , the projection 14 and the interior contact surfaces are configured as described in aforementioned u . s . pat . no . 6 , 447 , 360 , the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference . other configurations may be used in other embodiments . each of the sidewalls 13 includes a primary surface 15 , at least one groove 16 and at least one tongue 17 . in this embodiment , the primary surface 15 is within both the virtual plane of the sidewall 13 that includes the groove 16 and the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the tongue 17 when building elements respectively including a groove 16 and a tongue 17 are interconnected in a centered configuration . the coincident ridge - sidewall virtual plane and tongue - sidewall virtual plane are indicated by dotted line 18 in fig2 a . in some alternative embodiments ( not shown ) in which the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the ridges and / or the tongue is non - planar , the respective ridge - sidewall virtual plane and / or tongue - sidewall virtual plane might include all of the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the groove and / or the tongue . each groove 16 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a tongue 17 in a sidewall of another toy - building element ; and each tongue 17 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 16 in a sidewall of another toy - building element , as shown in fig2 a . in the preferred embodiments , the grooves 16 and the tongues 17 are configured and relatively dimensioned as described in aforementioned u . s . pat . nos . 6 , 250 , 986 and 6 , 616 , 499 , the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference . preferably , the relative dimensions of the groove 16 and the tongue 17 are such that when the distal portion 25 of the tongue 17 resides in the base region 22 of the groove 16 , part of the tongue 17 is compressed between and thereby frictionally engages the ridges 19 . the degree of the frictional engagement provided by the compression of the tongue 17 when the distal portion 25 of the tongue 17 resides in the base region 22 of the groove 16 is such as to enable a stationary relative disposition of a pair of so engaged building elements 10 to be varied precisely by smoothly sliding the tongue 17 of one of the pair of engaged building elements 10 within the groove 16 of the other of the pair of engaged building elements 10 , and also is such as to provide enough resistance to such sliding as to maintain the stationary relative disposition when one of the pair of engaged building elements has the top of its engaged side wall 13 disposed at a greater height than the top of the engaged side wall 13 of the other of the pair of building elements 10 . other configurations and relative dimensions of the grooves and tongues may be used in other embodiments . each groove 16 is formed between a pair of ridges 19 that extend outward to and thence beyond the virtual plane 18 of the sidewall 13 that includes the ridges 19 . each groove 16 has an entry opening 21 of a predominant minimum width w 1 and a base region 22 of a greater width than the predominant minimum width w 1 . the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 21 is the minimum width of the groove 16 that predominates over the length of the groove 16 between the top 11 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 . each tongue 17 has an indented trunk portion 24 and a distal portion 25 . the distal portion 25 has a predominant maximum width w 2 that is greater than the width of the indented trunk portion 24 and greater than the predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 21 for interconnecting in a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 16 in a side wall 13 of another such building element 10 so that the distal portion 25 of the tongue resides in the base region 22 of the groove 16 , as shown in fig2 a . the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion 23 is the maximum width of the distal portion 23 that predominates over the length of the tongue 17 between the top 11 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 . each of the ridges 19 is flexible in a lateral direction to thereby facilitate engagement of the distal portion 25 of the tongue 17 in the groove 16 of another building element by frontally pressing the tongue 17 into the groove 16 of another building element . such a restraining engagement can also be effected by sliding the tongue 17 of one building element into the open end of the groove 16 of another building element . the tongue 17 extends outward to but not beyond the primary surface 15 of the sidewall that includes the tongue 17 . the groove - forming ridges 19 and the tongues 17 extend between the top 11 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 . preferably , the maximum width of the distal portion 25 at the ends of the tongue 17 adjacent the top 11 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 is the same or smaller than the given predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 21 to thereby facilitate initiation of interconnection of the building elements 10 when sliding the tongues 17 into either end of the grooves 16 . initiation of the interconnection of the building elements 10 that is effected by sliding the tongues 17 into the ends of the grooves 16 is also facilitated by the minimum width of the entry opening 21 at the ends of the grooves 16 adjacent the top 11 and the bottom 12 of the building element 10 being the same or greater than the given predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 21 . in other embodiments in which the grooves and tongues are disposed and respectively extend in relation to the primary surface 15 and the respective virtual planes 18 , as shown in and described with reference to fig1 , 2 and 2 a , any particular sidewall may include none , one or more than one such groove 16 and / or tongue 17 . referring to fig3 and 3a , a toy building element 30 according to another embodiment of the present invention includes a top 31 , a bottom ( not shown ) and four sidewalls 32 . the top 31 of the building element 30 includes a primarily cylindrical projection 33 and the bottom ( not shown ) of the building element 30 is open . in alternative embodiments ( not shown ) more than one projection extends above the top broad surface . each of the sidewalls 32 includes a primary surface 34 , at least one groove 35 and at least one tongue 36 . in this embodiment , the primary surface 34 is within both the virtual plane of the sidewall 32 that includes the groove 35 and the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the tongue 36 when building elements respectively including a groove 35 and a tongue 36 are interconnected in a centered configuration . the coincident ridge - sidewall virtual plane and tongue - sidewall virtual plane are indicated by dotted line 37 in fig3 a . in some alternative embodiments ( not shown ) in which the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the ridges and / or the tongue is non - planar , the respective ridge - sidewall virtual plane and / or tongue - sidewall virtual plane might include all of the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the groove and / or the tongue . each groove 35 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a tongue 36 in a sidewall of another toy - building element ; and each tongue 36 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 35 in a sidewall of another toy - building element , as shown in fig3 a . each groove 35 is formed between a pair of ridges 38 that extend outward to and thence beyond the virtual plane 37 of the sidewall 32 that includes the ridges 38 . each groove 35 has an entry opening 40 of a predominant minimum width w 1 and a base region 41 of a greater width than the predominant minimum width w 1 . the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 40 is the minimum width of the groove 35 that predominates over the length of the groove 35 between the top 31 and the bottom of the building element 30 . each tongue 36 has an indented trunk portion 43 and a distal portion 44 . the distal portion 44 has a predominant maximum width w 2 that is greater than the width of the indented trunk portion 43 and greater than the predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 40 for interconnecting in a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 35 in a side wall 32 of another such building element 30 so that the distal portion 44 of the tongue resides in the base region 41 of the groove 35 , as shown in fig3 a . the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion 44 is the maximum width of the distal portion 44 that predominates over the length of the tongue 36 between the top 31 and the bottom of the building element 30 . the tongue 36 is flexible and split longitudinally into two laterally flexible parallel sections 36 ′. each of the parallel sections 36 ′ of the tongue 36 includes part of the indented trunk portion 43 and part of the distal portion 44 of the tongue 36 so that the distal portion 44 of the tongue 36 can be compressed laterally in order to effect the restraining engagement in the groove 35 by frontally pressing the tongue 36 into the groove 35 in another building element . such a restraining engagement can also be effected by sliding the tongue 36 of one building element into the open end of the groove 35 of another building element . each of the ridges 38 is flexible in a lateral direction to thereby further facilitate the engagement of the distal portion 44 of the tongue 36 in the groove 35 of another building element by frontally pressing the tongue 36 into the groove 35 of another building element . the tongue 36 extends outward to but not beyond the primary surface 34 of the sidewall that includes the tongue 36 . in other respects , the building element 30 described in relation to fig3 and 3a preferably is configured and dimensioned in the same manner as the building element 10 described above in relation to fig1 , 2 and 2 a . in other embodiments in which the grooves and tongues are disposed and respectively extend in relation to the primary surface 34 and the respective virtual planes 37 , as shown in and described with reference to fig3 and 3a , any particular sidewall may include none , one or more than one such groove 35 and / or tongue 36 . referring to fig4 and 4a , a toy building element 47 according to another embodiment of the present invention includes a top 48 , a bottom ( not shown ) and four sidewalls 49 . the top 48 of the building element 47 includes a primarily cylindrical projection 50 and the bottom ( not shown ) of the building element 47 is open . in alternative embodiments ( not shown ) more than one projection extends above the top broad surface . each of the sidewalls 49 includes a primary surface 51 , at least one groove 52 and at least one tongue 53 . in this embodiment , the primary surface 51 is within both the virtual plane of the sidewall 49 that includes the groove 52 and the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the tongue 53 when building elements respectively including a groove 52 and a tongue 53 are interconnected in a centered configuration . the coincident ridge - sidewall virtual plane and tongue - sidewall virtual plane are indicated by dotted line 54 in fig4 a . in some alternative embodiments ( not shown ) in which the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the ridges and / or the tongue is non - planar , the respective ridge - sidewall virtual plane and / or tongue - sidewall virtual plane might include all of the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the groove and / or the tongue . each groove 52 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a tongue 53 in a sidewall of another toy - building element ; and each tongue 53 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 53 in a sidewall of another toy - building element , as shown in fig4 a . each groove 52 is formed between a pair of ridges 55 that extend outward from a location in the virtual plane 54 of the sidewall 49 that includes the ridges 55 . each groove 52 has an entry opening 57 of a predominant minimum width w 1 and a base region 58 of a greater width than the predominant minimum width w 1 . the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 57 is the minimum width of the groove 52 that predominates over the length of the groove 52 between the top 48 and the bottom of the building element 47 . each tongue 53 has an indented trunk portion 60 and a distal portion 61 . the distal portion 60 has a predominant maximum width w 2 that is greater than the width of the indented trunk portion 60 and greater than the predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 57 for interconnecting in a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 52 in a side wall 49 of another such building element 47 so that the distal portion 61 of the tongue resides in the base region 58 of the groove 52 , as shown in fig4 a . the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion 61 is the maximum width of the distal portion 61 that predominates over the length of the tongue 53 between the top 48 and the bottom of the building element 47 . the tongue 53 is flexible and split longitudinally into two laterally flexible parallel sections 53 ′. each of the parallel sections 53 ′ of the tongue 53 includes part of the indented trunk portion 60 and part of the distal portion 61 of the tongue 53 so that the distal portion 61 of the tongue 53 can be compressed laterally in order to effect the restraining engagement in the groove 52 by frontally pressing the tongue 53 into the groove 52 in another building element . such a restraining engagement can also be effected by sliding the tongue 53 of one building element into the open end of the groove 52 of another building element . each of the ridges 55 is flexible in a lateral direction to thereby further facilitate the engagement of the distal portion 61 of the tongue 53 in the groove 52 of another building element by frontally pressing the tongue 53 into the groove 52 of another building element . the tongue 53 extends outward to but not beyond the primary surface 51 of the sidewall that includes the tongue 53 . in other respects , the building element 46 described in relation to fig4 and 4a preferably is configured and dimensioned in the same manner as the building element 10 described above in relation to fig1 , 2 and 2 a . in other embodiments in which the grooves and tongues are disposed and respectively extend in relation to the primary surface 51 and the respective virtual planes 54 , as shown in and described with reference to fig4 and 4a , any particular sidewall may include none , one or more than one such groove 52 and / or tongue 53 . referring to fig5 , three building elements 10 a , 10 b , 10 c , are interconnected with one another . the building elements 10 a , 10 b 10 c are the same as the building element 10 , which is described above with reference to fig1 , 2 and 2 a . the building element 10 a is interconnected with the building element 10 b by engaging the projection on the top of building element 10 b with the interior surfaces of the building element 10 a . the building element 10 c is engaged with both of the building elements 10 a and 10 b by engaging the tongues and grooves in one sidewall of the building element 10 c with the respective grooves and tongues in the sidewalls of the building elements 10 a and 10 b by either frontally pressing the tongues into the grooves or by sliding the tongues into the grooves from the open ends of the respective grooves . referring to fig6 and 6a , a toy building element 64 according to another embodiment of the present invention includes a top 65 , a bottom ( not shown ) and four sidewalls 66 . the top 65 of the building element 64 includes a primarily cylindrical projection 67 and the bottom ( not shown ) of the building element 64 is open . in alternative embodiments ( not shown ) more than one projection extends above the top broad surface . each of the sidewalls 66 includes a primary surface 67 , at least one groove 68 and at least one tongue 69 . in this embodiment , the primary surface 67 is within both the virtual plane of the sidewall 66 that includes the groove 68 and the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the tongue 69 when building elements respectively including a groove 68 and a tongue 69 are interconnected in a centered configuration . the coincident ridge - sidewall virtual plane and tongue - sidewall virtual plane are indicated by dotted line 70 in fig6 a . in some alternative embodiments ( not shown ) in which the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the ridges and / or the tongue is non - planar , the respective ridge - sidewall virtual plane and / or tongue - sidewall virtual plane might include all of the primary surface of the sidewall that includes the groove and / or the tongue . each groove 68 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a tongue 69 in a sidewall of another toy - building element ; and each tongue 69 is configured and dimensioned for effecting a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 68 in a sidewall of another toy - building element , as shown in fig6 a . each groove 68 is formed between a pair of ridges 71 that extend outward to and thence beyond the virtual plane 70 of the sidewall 66 that includes the ridges 71 . each groove 68 has an entry opening 73 of a predominant minimum width w 1 and a base region 74 of a greater width than the predominant minimum width w 1 . the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 73 is the minimum width of the groove 68 that predominates over the length of the groove 68 between the top 65 and the bottom of the building element 64 . each tongue 69 has an indented trunk portion 75 and a distal portion 76 . the distal portion 76 has a predominant maximum width w 2 that is greater than the width of the indented trunk portion 75 and greater than the predominant minimum width w 1 of the groove entry opening 73 for interconnecting in a releasable restraining engagement with a groove 68 in a side wall 66 of another such building element 64 so that the distal portion 76 of the tongue resides in the base region 74 of the groove 68 , as shown in fig6 a . the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion 76 is the maximum width of the distal portion 76 that predominates over the length of the tongue 69 between the top 65 and the bottom of the building element 64 . the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 73 is less than the predominant minimum width w 1 of the entry opening 21 in the embodiment of fig1 , 2 and 2 a ; and the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion 76 is less than the predominant maximum width w 2 of the distal portion in the embodiment of fig1 , 2 and 2 a . each of the ridges 71 is flexible in a lateral direction to thereby facilitate engagement of the distal portion 76 of the tongue 69 in the groove 68 of another building element by frontally pressing the tongue 69 into the groove 68 of another building element . such a restraining engagement can also be effected by sliding the tongue 69 of one building element into the open end of the groove 68 of another building element . the tongue 69 extends outward but not all the way to the primary surface 70 of the sidewall 66 that includes the tongue 69 . each tongue 69 has an indented trunk portion 75 and a distal portion 76 . the distal portion 76 has a predominant maximum width w 2 in other respects , the building element 64 described in relation to fig6 and 6a preferably is configured and dimensioned in the same manner as the building element 10 described above in relation to fig1 , 2 and 2 a . in other embodiments in which the grooves and tongues are disposed and respectively extend in relation to the primary surface 67 and the respective virtual planes 70 , as shown in and described with reference to fig6 and 6a , any particular sidewall may include none , one or more than one such groove 68 and / or tongue 69 . although the primary surfaces of the sidewalls that include ridges and / or tongues are approximately planar in the embodiments of the present invention shown and described herein , in some embodiments not shown herein one or more of such primary surfaces are not planar . preferably , the toy building elements described herein are made by an injection molding process . the preferred material is polypropylene . in at least some embodiments , the part of the distal portion of the at least one tongue having the predominant maximum width does not extend outward beyond the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the at least one tongue . in at least some embodiments , the part of the entry opening of the at least one groove having the predominant minimum width is situated outward beyond the virtual plane of the sidewall that includes the at least one pair of ridges . regarding the incorporation by reference of disclosures from u . s . pat . nos . 6 , 250 , 986 , 6 , 447 , 360 and 6 , 616 , 499 , the meaning of the terms that are used both herein and in such patents should be interpreted within the context of the present specification and drawing . the advantages specifically stated herein do not necessarily apply to every conceivable embodiment of the present invention . further , such stated advantages of the present invention are only examples and should not be construed as the only advantages of the present invention . while the above description contains many specificities , these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the present invention , but rather as examples of the preferred embodiments described herein . other variations are possible and the scope of the present invention should be determined not by the embodiments described herein but rather by the claims and their legal equivalents . the claims require no implicit limitations . each claim is to be construed explicitly as stated , or by its legal equivalent .	0
as discussed above , embodiments of the present disclosure relate to a mobile device case and more particularly to a memex cell phone case system as used to improve the cell accessory . preferably , a mobile device case should provide options for external memory storage as well as other physical accessory functions and yet would operate reliably and be manufactured at a modest expense . thus , a need exists for a reliable memex cell phone case system to avoid the above - mentioned problems . generally speaking , memex cell phone case systems may comprise a case for mobile devices , especially a smart phone , with a combination of desirable features . the preferred embodiment of the disclosure includes a protective case which includes a kickstand for resting the device on a surface , a stylus for operating a touch screen , a storage slot for retaining the stylus , and a receptacle for inserting a memory card , preferably of the micro - sd type , to interface and add supplementary data storage to the mobile device , and a dust cover for the micro - sd slot . the case also incorporates desirable aspects for protecting the device . the case is constructed of layered plastic and rubber , providing both a rigid , durable component and a shockproof , waterproof component to the case . the case incorporates appropriate openings and button covers allowing the case to provide ample protection for the device while providing full access to all the device &# 39 ; s controls and facilities . these may include power buttons , volume rocker switches , speakers , microphones , cameras , antennas , charging ports , and other components . the combination of the kickstand , stylus , stylus slot , and memory expansion adapter , incorporated into a durable protective case offers particular benefits . the combination of these features provide a case accessory that provides maximum utility . the memory expansion adapter meets a demand for adding aftermarket storage to commercial smartphones , which generally do not permit for expansion or replacement of internal memory . the case comprises an enclosure surrounding the backside and edges of the mobile device . a removable phone retainer comprising a section of the case skirt permits the device to be removably inserted into the case without tools , and secures the device to the inner face of the case in union with the male receiving end of the electronic memory adapter . installation of the mobile device involves removing the retainer , sliding the device into the case , pressing the device into the memory connector , and replacing the retainer . the backside of the case includes a u - shaped slot which contains the folding kickstand . the terminal ends of the slot contain pins upon which the hinged portions of the kickstand rotate . when folded against the case , the kickstand lies flush with the back of the case . the kickstand is retained in the slot by detents or clasps . when deployed , the kickstand makes an angle to the case and supports the device against a surface . in this orientation the device is positioned in a “ landscape ” orientation , with the longest length of the device parallel to the supporting surface of the kickstand . this position is ideal for using the stylus to interface with a touch screen device . an alternative method may allow placement of the device in a “ portrait ” orientation . the stylus is optimized for this purpose and comprises a cylindrical body with a pointed tip for engaging the touch screen . the stylus is storable in the stylus slot , which comprises a slotted trench in the supporting member of the kickstand . the stylus is preferably retained by a magnet and is accessible when the kickstand is deployed from the case . the stylus is removed from the slot by sliding the stylus from either end of the kickstand base . the memory expansion adapter comprises a pair of terminals contained in the body of the case . a slot in the case provides a receptacle to retain a micro - sd card or similar storage device . the slot is equipped with a removable dust cover . the first terminal is placed on the outward - facing side of the slot , and engages with the electrical contacts of the storage unit . the second terminal is located on the inside face of the case coincident with a port on the mobile device . the internal hardware of the memory expansion adapter is configured to adapt the external storage device with the hardware of the mobile device . the memex case may be offered in various configurations to accommodate the differing commercial phones and devices on the market . the case may also be sold in a variety of colors and aesthetic designs . in some embodiments , the case may include adapters for charging accessories . referring to the drawings by numerals of reference there is shown in fig1 - 4 , an accessory for mobile devices according to an embodiment of the present disclosure . the mobile device accessory ( memex cell phone case system 100 ) may comprise memex cell phone case assembly 110 , which may comprise case shell 112 including and defined by backside cover panel 114 having inside face 115 and outside face 116 , case skirt 118 having inside surface 119 and outside surface 120 , detachable phone retainer 122 , kickstand receiving slot 126 , at least two hinge pins 128 , at least two flexible button covers 130 , and plurality of apertures 131 ; stylus 132 including and defined by an elongated cylindrical body 133 , proximal end 134 having pointed tip 135 , and distal end 136 axially distal to the proximal end 134 ; kickstand 170 including and defined by surface support 172 , stylus well 124 integrated with the surface support 172 , said stylus well 124 configured to receive and retain the stylus 132 , upper supporting member 174 , lower supporting member 176 , upper hinge knuckle 178 , and lower hinge knuckle 180 ; memory expansion adapter 181 including and defined by mobile device accepting terminal 182 , and external memory accepting terminal 184 that is structured and arranged to interchangeably accept and retain an external memory device , said external memory accepting terminal 184 further structured and arranged to communicate with an internal memory of the mobile device 160 . case shell 112 , stylus 132 , kickstand 170 , and memory expansion adapter 181 are in functional combination . stylus 132 is removably retained within case shell 112 , and kickstand 170 is hingedly attached to an extendable from case shell 112 . memory expansion adapter 181 is permanently contained within case shell 112 . memex cell phone case system 100 is structured and arranged to enclose mobile device 160 , and to interchangeably accept and retain external memory device 162 within memory expansion adapter 181 . memory expansion adapter 181 is structured and arranged to communicate with internal memory of mobile device 160 . inside face 115 of backside cover panel 114 of case shell 112 , inside surface 119 of case skirt 118 of case shell 112 , and detachable phone retainer 122 of case shell 112 in functional combination form inner volume structured and arranged to hold mobile device 160 . plurality of apertures 131 of case shell 112 are structured and arranged to allow access to various controls and functions of mobile device 160 . at least two flexible button covers 130 are structured and arranged to allow protective access to various controls of mobile device 160 , and stylus 132 is removably attachable to said stylus well 124 of said kickstand 170 for storage . upper hinge knuckle 178 of kickstand 170 and lower hinge knuckle 180 of kickstand 170 are hingedly attached to at least two hinge pins 128 of case shell 112 within kickstand receiving slot 126 of case shell 112 , kickstand 170 being storable within kickstand receiving slot 126 of case shell 112 . plurality of apertures 131 of case shell 112 is structured and arranged to receive external memory device 162 in communication with memory expansion adapter 181 and mobile device accepting terminal 182 of memory expansion adapter 181 and external memory accepting terminal 184 of memory expansion adapter 181 are integral to backside cover panel 114 of case shell 112 . memory expansion adapter 181 is usable by mobile device 160 through communication of electronic circuitry for storing electronic data when external memory device 162 is attached . case shell 112 is constructed of plastic and rubber , and is structured to allow normal signal transmission of said mobile device 160 . kickstand 170 is pivotably attached to backside cover panel 114 of case shell in alignment with kickstand receiving slot 126 of case shell 112 so that kickstand 170 lies flush with backside cover panel 114 of case shell 112 ; when deployed , surface support 172 of kickstand 170 and outside surface 120 of case skirt 118 of case shell 112 form resting face upon which mobile device 160 is supported . stylus 132 is structured and arranged to interface with mobile device 160 by means of touchscreen technologies . mobile device 160 is chargeable through case shell 112 , particularly via usb - type charging terminals . outside surface 120 of case skirt 118 of case shell 112 , outside face 116 of backside cover panel 114 of case shell 112 , and detachable phone retainer 122 of case shell 112 form protective outer membrane enclosing mobile device 160 for preventing damage to mobile device 160 . it should be noted that memex cell phone case system 100 may be adapted as a kit 105 comprising the following parts : at least one case shell 112 , at least one kickstand 170 , at least one stylus 132 , at least one memory expansion adapter 181 , and at least one set of user instructions 145 . the kit 105 has instructions 145 such that functional relationships are detailed in relation to the structure of the disclosure ( such that the disclosure can be used , maintained , or the like in a preferred manner ). memex cell phone case 100 may be manufactured and provided for sale in a wide variety of sizes and shapes for a wide assortment of applications . a method of using the mobile device accessory 100 described above may include the steps of : providing the mobile device accessory including a case shell , a stylus , a kickstand , and an external memory adapter , pressing a mobile device into said retention lip of said case shell against a backside cover panel of said case shell , uncoupling said stylus from a stylus well of said kickstand , deploying said kickstand from a kickstand receiving slot in said case shell ; resting said mobile device on a surface support of said kickstand , and using said stylus to interface with said mobile device . similarly , a preferred method of using the memex cell phone case system 100 includes pressing the mobile device into the retention lip of the case shell against the backside cover panel of the case shell , uncoupling the stylus from the stylus well of the kickstand , deploying the kickstand from the kickstand receiving slot of the case shell , resting the mobile device on the surface support of the kickstand ; and using the stylus to interface with the mobile device . upon reading this specification , it should be appreciated that , under appropriate circumstances , considering such issues as user preferences , design preference , structural requirements , marketing preferences , cost , available materials , technological advances , etc ., other case structure arrangements such as , for example , cases accommodating the unique layouts and features of commercially available mobile devices , etc ., may be sufficient . it should be noted that the steps described in the method of use can be carried out in many different orders according to user preference . the use of “ step of ” should not be interpreted as “ step for ”, in the claims herein and is not intended to invoke the provisions of 35 u . s . c . § 112 ( f ). upon reading this specification , it should be appreciated that , under appropriate circumstances , considering such issues as design preference , user preferences , marketing preferences , cost , structural requirements , available materials , technological advances , etc ., other methods of use arrangements such as , for example , different orders within above - mentioned list , elimination or addition of certain steps , including or excluding certain maintenance steps , etc ., may be sufficient . the embodiments of the disclosure described herein are exemplary and numerous modifications , variations and rearrangements can be readily envisioned to achieve substantially equivalent results , all of which are intended to be embraced within the spirit and scope of the disclosure . further , the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the u . s . patent and trademark office and the public generally , and especially the scientist , engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology , to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application .	0
fig1 illustrates a first configuration of the preferred embodiment of a system 100 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil and extracting them from a reservoir 110 . fig1 illustrates a configuration of the preferred embodiment of the system that generates a syngas with a rather high temperature and pressure that is injected into an injection well . while it may not be practical to inject syngas with such high temperatures and pressures , this figure is useful for understanding some of the novelty of the invention . after fig1 is discussed , other figures that implement more detailed and more practical systems and methods such as those which reduce the temperature of the syngas before it is injected into a well are discussed further . in fig1 , fuel is input to a high pressure gasifier 102 through a feed line 101 along with oxygen from line 120 and steam from line 121 . the fuel is partially burned in the gasifier with the oxygen and steam to generate a high temperature , high pressure syngas . the high temperature and high pressure syngas includes primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide . in this configuration of preferred embodiment , the ratio of hydrogen to carbon monoxide in the syngas is in the range of 2 to 3 : 1 . the high pressure gasifier 102 that generates the syngas can be a market available high pressure gasifier such as the zeep ( zero emissions energy plant ) gasifier developed by pratt and whitney rocketdyne . u . s . pat . no . 7 , 547 , 423 describes other aspects of a high pressure gasifier the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference . the system 100 injects the syngas at a controlled temperature into the reservoir 110 to heat , crack , hydrogenate and upgrade heavy oil insitu . cracking the heavy oil in the presence of hydrogen can prevent or reduce the formation of coke . the syngas is transported through an upper well line 104 that transports it below the earth &# 39 ; s surface 106 to an upper region of an oil reservoir 110 . the upper well line 104 may be connected to an upper well horizontal line 108 that can have openings periodically placed in the horizontal line 108 to distribute the syngas at periodic intervals within the reservoir 110 . the heated hydrogen and carbon monoxide of the syngas entering the reservoir 110 heats up , cracks and hydrogenates heavy oil within the reservoir providing a higher recovery rate than a typical sagd system . the cracked and hydrogenated heavy oil has a lower density and viscosity that allows it to flow generally downward toward a lower well horizontal line 114 . the lower well horizontal line 114 can have holes periodically placed in it to allow the cracked oil to flow into these holes . the cracked oil can then be extracted through a vertical well line 112 and brought to the surface of the earth for further processing and / or storage . the system 100 for upgrading and extracting heavy oil of fig1 has several benefits over a traditional sagd system . the system 100 uses very little water consumption , the consumed steam is the raw material for the generation of hydrogen through water gas shift reaction . unlike a typical sagd , system 100 for upgrading and extracting heavy oil creates little to no emissions , because the products of gasification are injected into the well . the formation of hydrogen in the syngas aids in the hydrogenation of the cracked heavy oil , upgrading it and minimizing the formation of coke . because hydrogen has a heat capacity of 14 . 3 j / g . k versus 2 . 08 for steam , it provides for superior heat transfer to the oil reservoir 110 . additionally , the system 100 can have no external fuel requirements or associated infra - structure because it can use a slipstream of the produced oil bottoms fraction as fuel which results in lower capital and operating costs per barrel of bitumen produced . using a slipstream to eliminate or significantly reduce external fuel requirements is discussed in detail below with reference to the system 200 of fig2 . fig2 illustrates a second configuration of the preferred embodiment of a system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil and extracting them from a reservoir 110 . similar to the system 100 of fig1 , the system 200 of fig2 includes a high pressure gasifier 102 to generate a high temperature , high pressure syngas of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide . unlike the system of fig1 , the system 200 of fig2 includes an orc system 250 with a hot oil circulating loop to allow for the temperature of the syngas to be lowered and to provide thermal energy to an orc power generation unit 208 . the components of the orc system 250 and the details of how it operates are discussed below . lowering the temperature of the syngas allows it to be injected at temperatures between 300 ° c . and 500 ° c . into the reservoir reducing the need to have extremely high performance piping and equipment that would be required at higher pressures and temperatures . similar to the system of fig1 , the conditioned high pressure hydrogen and carbon monoxide syngas is routed to the injection well through lines 104 and 114 to heat the formation , crack the heavy oil in the formation and react with the hydrogen in the presence of a natural catalytic environment of fine clays and sand to upgrade bitumen and / or heavy oil in the production well . again , the high pressure gasifier 102 may be a pratt and whitney rocketdyne zeep gasifier or another type of gasifier as understood by those of ordinary skill in the art . before describing further details of the system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil , some of the improvements of this system are discussed over prior systems . whereas a typical sagd system is limited to heating the oil formation to reduce the oil viscosity , the system of fig2 provides the capability for the heating , cracking , hydrogenating and upgrading of heavy oil . moreover , the system 200 of fig2 can meet on demand temperatures required in the oil formation whereas the sagd process temperature is limited to the rating of the steam generator pressure which sets the temperature of the injection into the reservoir . the system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil , can generate a wide range of injection temperatures on demand . this ability to control injection temperature allows for better control of production and larger gaps between injector and producing wells . as a result , it can reduce capital costs substantially . little to no external power is required to power the system 200 because the system 200 generates its own power by recovery of thermal energy in controlling the temperature of the syngas to reservoir 110 . the system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil of fig2 includes an air blower 222 , a molecular sieve 223 and an oxygen compressor 224 to generate a high concentration oxygen stream to provide the oxygen requirements for the incomplete combustion of the fuel in the gasifier 102 . the air blower 222 is provided to first pressurize atmospheric air . a line carries the compressed air to the molecular sieve 223 where it is separated into o 2 and nitrogen . the nitrogen is released into the atmosphere or it can be recovered if desired . the oxygen compressor 224 further compresses the highly concentrated oxygen . the compressed oxygen leaves the compressor 224 on line 228 which splits into a gasification oxygen line 120 and an atomizing oxygen line 125 . the system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil includes a feed tank 202 for storing oil reclaimed from the reservoir 110 . a portion of this stored oil from the feed tank 202 is carried from the input line 101 to a high pressure oil pump 204 that pumps it into line 206 . compressed atomizing o 2 from line 225 and the feed oil in line 206 are combined and passed through line 226 to an emulsifier vessel 227 where they are mixed together . steam in line 121 , gasification oxygen in line 120 and the emulsified oxygen and oil in line 228 all enter the high pressure gasifier 102 where they are combined to generate a high pressure , high temperature syngas . as previously mentioned when discussing fig1 , the gasification generates about a 2 to 3 : 1 ratio of hydrogen and carbon monoxide . those of ordinary skill in the art will realize that this ratio is selectable and can be other ranges or values . before the high pressure , high temperature syngas is injected down line 104 to the reservoir , line 230 first carries it to a gasifier heat recovery unit ( hru ) 132 to control ( e . g ., lower ) the syngas temperature . power is generated in an organic rankine cycle ( orc ) system 250 which converts the thermal energy captured in the gasifier hru 132 into electricity . the orc system 250 includes an orc heat exchanger 234 , line 240 , a generator 208 , line 241 , an air heat exchanger 242 , line 243 , a refrigerant pump 244 and line 245 . the orc system 250 receives its energy from a closed loop hot oil circulation system including the gasifier hru 232 , line 233 , the orc heat exchanger 234 , line 235 , pump 236 , line 237 and the gasifier hru 232 . the oil circulating system 210 controls the temperature of the syngas for injection into the reservoir 110 . the temperature of the syngas is controlled by feeding hot circulating oil in line 233 into the orc heat exchanger 234 where it gives up its thermal energy . line 233 transfers heat from the hru 232 to the orc heat exchanger resulting in a cooling of the syngas exiting the hru on line 104 . the cooled circulating oil travels in line 235 to an oil pump 236 . then pump 236 pumps the oil through line 237 to a heating coil in the gasifier hru 237 to complete this loop . in another closed loop , a low boiling point fluid ( a refrigerant ) is pumped by refrigerant pump 244 at a high pressure in line 245 to the orc heat exchanger 234 where it is vaporized to form a high pressure , low boiling point gaseous fluid . this high pressure , low boiling point fluid gaseous stream enters , from line 240 , an expander turbine so that it can provide shaft horsepower to the generator 208 to provide rotation to an electrical generator . the rotating electrical generator can then produce electricity to power the overall system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil . line 241 carries the lower energy stream after it passed through the generator 208 to the air heat exchanger 242 . at the air heat exchanger 242 , the lower energy stream is further cooled . line 243 carries the stream from the air heat exchanger 242 back to the pump 244 where the cycle begins to repeat in another cycle . the system 200 for upgrading heavy oil pumps the conditioned heavy oil from the hru 232 in line 104 down to the oil reservoir 110 . the syngas is generally injected into line 104 for travel to the reservoir 110 at about 300 ° c . to 500 ° c . similar to the discussion above with reference to system 100 , the injected syngas heats up the oil formation , cracking , hydrogenating and upgrading the heavy oil , decreasing its density and viscosity allowing it to flow into the production well ( e . g ., lines 112 and 114 ). the system 200 utilizes the natural catalytic bed of the formation to aid the rate of reaction . for example , the reservoir minerals are composed of clay minerals and non - clay minerals , the clay minerals , such as kaolinites and montmorillonite , are the main catalysts in the process of hydrocarbon source rock organic compounds . moreover the elements of aluminium , iron and potassium present in the matrices are known to promote catalysis oxidation , decarboxylation and hydrogenation of organic compounds . the high pressure , high temperature gasifier 102 can be controlled so that the generated syngas includes carbon dioxide . when the syngas steam condenses in the reservoir 110 it combines with the carbon dioxide to form carbonic acid . referring to fig3 a / b , the carbonic acid dissolves the cement bridges 352 between quartz particles and thus increases the pore space at the geological matrix in the reservoir which will allow the passage ( increases the release ) of more oil toward the output well lines 112 and 114 increasing the production of the reservoir . fig3 a illustrates a blown up example of a geological matrix before the creation of carbonic acid and fig3 b illustrates what the same geological matrix may look like after it has interacted with carbonic acid . dissolution of co 2 in the formation water results in the formation of carbonic acid , which in turn dissolve the formation minerals during injection , this process improves formation permeability . additional carbon dioxide can be injected into the reservoir to further act as a pressurizing agent and when dissolved underground in the heavy oil , it significantly reduces its viscosity , enabling the oil to flow more easily through the wider pore formation into the production well . the system may leave this carbon dioxide underground in the deposit after the oil has been extracted . the amount of hydrogen that is injected into the reservoir 110 by lines 104 and 108 affect the cracking hydrogenation reactions process and the quality of the oil extracted from the reservoir 110 . therefore , the system 200 for upgrading bitumen , heavy oil or another oil can include an api gravity meter 300 for monitoring the quality of upgraded oil being extracted from the reservoir 110 . the api gravity can be monitored and when it falls out of range of values that system 100 is monitoring , a controller 302 can be configured to adjust the amount of oxygen , steam and / or oil input to the high pressure gasifier 102 to control ; the amount and composition of hydrogen in syngas stream ; the pressure and temperature of the syngas being injected into the reservoir 110 to move the api gravity to a more acceptable range . lines 112 and 114 carry the upgraded oil that is recovered in the production well and carry it aboveground to a separator 260 . the separator 260 splits the produced upgraded oil into two streams . line 261 carries a portion of the heavy ends for gasification and line 262 carries the light ends for sales . example methods may be better appreciated with reference to flow diagrams . while for purposes of simplicity of explanation , the illustrated methodologies are shown and described as a series of blocks , it is to be appreciated that the methodologies are not limited by the order of the blocks , as some blocks can occur in different orders and / or concurrently with other blocks from that shown and described . moreover , less than all the illustrated blocks may be required to implement an example methodology . blocks may be combined or separated into multiple components . furthermore , additional and / or alternative methodologies can employ additional , not illustrated blocks . fig4 illustrates a configuration of the preferred embodiment as a method 400 for cracking and extracting oil beneath the ground . the method 400 is especially well suited to extract oil from deposits beneath the earth &# 39 ; s surface . the method 400 begins by creating a high pressure , high temperature syngas , at 402 . as previously mentioned , the syngas can be created by partial combustion of a mixture of oil , oxygen and steam in a gasifier . next , the syngas is injected into a deposit of oil under the ground , at 404 , to crack and hydrogenate the oil to produce upgraded oil with a reduced viscosity . some configurations of the method 400 will cool the syngas in a heat recovery unit before it is pumped below ground . the reduced viscosity oil is extracted and brought above the ground , at 406 . this oil can be separated into light oil that is ready for sales and heavier oil that can be used to create the syngas in a gasifier . in the foregoing description , certain terms have been used for brevity , clearness , and understanding . no unnecessary limitations are to be implied therefrom beyond the requirement of the prior art because such terms are used for descriptive purposes and are intended to be broadly construed . therefore , the invention is not limited to the specific details , the representative embodiments , and illustrative examples shown and described . thus , this application is intended to embrace alterations , modifications , and variations that fall within the scope of the appended claims . moreover , the description and illustration of the invention is an example and the invention is not limited to the exact details shown or described . references to “ the preferred embodiment ”, “ an embodiment ”, “ one example ”, “ an example ”, and so on , indicate that the embodiment ( s ) or example ( s ) so described may include a particular feature , structure , characteristic , property , element , or limitation , but that not every embodiment or example necessarily includes that particular feature , structure , characteristic , property , element or limitation . furthermore , repeated use of the phrase “ in the preferred embodiment ” does not necessarily refer to the same embodiment , though it may .	4
referring now to the drawings wherein the showings are for purposes of illustrating embodiments of the invention only and not for purposes of limiting the same , fig1 shows a wire guiding device depicted generally at 1 . the wire guiding device 1 may include a generally planar bottom referred to as the base or base portion 3 . the base portion 3 may have an annular configuration defining an outer peripheral edge 5 . the base portion 3 may further include an inner peripheral edge 6 lying in close proximity to or substantially in the same plane as the outer peripheral edge 5 . while the outer peripheral edge 5 of the base portion 3 is described herein as being circular in configuration , persons of ordinary skill in the art will readily understand the application of other geometric shapes to the embodiments of the present invention . the wire guiding device 1 may also include a guide portion or wire guide portion 10 . the wire guide portion 10 may extend inward from the inner peripheral edge 6 of the base portion 3 toward a centerline axis c . in one embodiment , the wire guide portion 10 may further include a curved surface sloping upward in a first direction . the wire guide portion 10 may terminate at an aperture 12 having a center substantially coincident with the centerline axis c . however , it is contemplated in another embodiment that the center of the aperture 12 may be offset with respect to the centerline axis c . the aperture 12 may be circular in configuration having a characteristic plane parallel to , but spaced apart from , the plane of the base portion 3 by a distance d , which may be less than the diameter of the base portion 3 . in one embodiment , the distance d may be in the range of 1 to 5 inches . however , any distance d may be chosen as is appropriate for use with the embodiments of the present invention . it is noted here that other embodiments are contemplated where the plane of the aperture 12 is inclined with respect to the plane of the base portion 3 in any direction and at any angle . with continue reference to fig1 and now also to fig2 and 3 , the wire guiding device 1 may be received within a wire storage container 15 , which in an exemplary manner may be a drum 15 ′, used to store coiled wire for use in any type of application , and more particularly for welding applications . the wire guiding device 1 may have a cross section that corresponds to the circumference of the wire storage container 15 , which in an exemplary manner may be generally circular . however , other embodiments are contemplated that incorporate other cross sectional configurations , like for example polygonal configurations . as such , wire 17 may be wound into the drum 15 ′ in a coiled manner and stored therein for use at a later time . the coil of wire may have an inner and outer diameter . the outer diameter of the coiled wire 17 may be constrained by the circumference of the drum 15 ′. the inner diameter of the coiled wire may vary depending on the type of wire being wound in the drum 15 ′. it follows that a cross section of the coiled wire 17 has a characteristic width w , the surface of which may be substantially covered by the wire guiding device 1 during use as will be discussed further in a subsequent paragraph . accordingly , the wire guiding device 1 may be subsequently placed into the wire storage container 15 on top of the coiled wire 17 . it will be readily seen that as the height of the coiled wire 17 diminishes , the wire guiding device 1 may float downward within the drum 15 ′ maintaining constant contact with the top surface of the coiled wire 17 . accordingly , the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed such that it freely descends downward despite any contact with the surfaces of the drum 15 ′, as will be discussed in detail below . with continued reference to fig1 through 3 , the outer peripheral edge 5 of the base portion 3 may be sized to match the circumference of the drum 15 ′. by matching the circumference of the drum 15 ′, it is meant that the diameter of the outer peripheral edge 5 may be equal to or somewhat less than the circumference of the drum 15 ′. the wire guiding device 1 may further include a side wall 22 extending from the outer peripheral edge 5 . the side wall 22 may be fashioned at an angle a with respect to an axis perpendicular to the plane of the base portion 3 or a vertical axis . the angle a may range from 0 ° to 90 °. more specifically the angle a may be in the range of 1 ° to 10 °, and in particularly 5 °. the length of the side wall 22 may extend outward far enough to contact the surface of the drum 15 ′ thereby spanning the region between the base portion 3 and the surface of the drum 15 ′. as such any length of side wall 22 may be chosen as is appropriate for use with the embodiments of the present invention . by contacting the surface of the drum 15 ′, the wire 17 may be prevented by rising upward around the wire guiding device 1 thus limiting or substantially preventing tangles from occurring in this manner . it is noted here that the side wall 22 may angle upward in the same direction as that of the wire guide portion 10 . however , in another embodiment , it is contemplated that the side wall 22 may extend downward in the opposite direction . accordingly , the side wall 22 may function to close the region between the base portion 3 and the wall of the drum 15 ′. with continued reference to fig1 through 3 , the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed from a semi - rigid or pliable material , such as a thermoplastic material . examples of this kind of material may include but are not limited to : polystyrene or abs ( acrylonitrile butadiene styrene ), pvc , high impact polystyrene , high density polyethylene , polyester , and thermoplastic elastomers such as acetal , santoprene , and hytrl . however , any material may be utilized that allows the wire guiding device 1 and more specifically , the side wall 22 to flex when contacting the wire storage container 15 . by being pliable , the side wall 22 may deform to fill in gaps between the wire guiding device 1 and the drum 15 ′, which may arise due to inconsistencies in constructing the drum 15 ′. accordingly , the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed by thermoforming or plastic injection molding . although , any manner of constructing the wire guiding device 1 may be chosen with sound engineering judgment . in this way , the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed as a unitary article contiguously formed substantially over the entire surface of the wire guiding device 1 . still , other embodiments may include individually constructed sections or pieces that are assembled and fastened together to form the wire guiding device 1 . with continued reference to fig2 , as noted above the base portion 3 may sit on top of the coiled wire 17 and may cover a substantial portion of the width w of the cross section of the coiled wire 17 . more specifically , the inner peripheral edge 6 may have a diameter slightly less than the inner diameter of the coiled wire 17 . in one embodiment , the diameter of the inner peripheral edge 6 may be between 0 % and 5 % smaller than the diameter of the coiled wire 17 . as such , the base portion 3 may cover most or all of the surface area of the cross section of the coiled wire 17 . the base portion 3 may be substantially flat and horizontal distributing the weight of the wire guiding device 1 evenly over the top surface of the coiled wire 17 . the weight of the wire guiding device 1 may vary depending upon the type and / or size of wire that is being utilized . for example , typical welding wire 17 packaged in this fashion may range in diameter from 0 . 035 inches to 0 . 062 inches . accordingly , the wire guiding device 1 may have a weight in the range from 0 . 5 pounds to 2 . 5 pounds . in one instance , for welding wire having a diameter of 0 . 035 inches , the wire guiding device 1 may have a weight of substantially 0 . 6 pounds . however , any proportion of the weight of the wire guiding device 1 to the type and / or size of welding wire 17 may be chosen as is appropriate for use with the embodiments of the present invention . with reference again to fig2 , the inner peripheral edge 6 may be termed a transition region delineating between the base portion 3 , which may be linear in configuration , and the wire guide portion 10 , which may be curved . the two portions 3 , 10 may be blended together at the transition region thereby providing a smooth transition surface against which the wire 17 may contact as it is being dispensed . in other words , the transition between the two regions 3 , 10 may be seamless having no abrupt changers in the contour so as not to disrupt the flow of wire 17 . in one embodiment , the radius of curvature of the wire guide portion 10 may be constant . in another embodiment , the radius of curvature may vary . in even another embodiment , the wire guide portion 10 may be substantially linear thereby composing a frusto - conical surface . persons of ordinary skill in the art will recognize this as an infinite radius of curvature . however , it is to be construed that any radius of curvature or any contoured surface comprising the wire guide portion 10 may be chosen with sound judgment as is appropriate for use with the embodiments of the subject invention . it is noted here that any length of the curved surface and / or any diameter of the aperture 12 may be chosen without limiting the scope of coverage of the embodiments of the subject invention . the wire guiding device 1 may further include one or more gussets or ribs 27 . the ribs 27 may be fashioned on one side of the wire guiding device 1 . more specifically , all of the ribs 27 may be fashioned on the opposite side of the wire guiding device 1 from which the wire 17 may contact its surface during use . the ribs 27 may extend longitudinally from the base portion 3 to the wire guiding portion 10 and may have any length as is appropriate for strengthening and / or for providing rigidity to the wire guiding device 1 . in one embodiment , the ribs 27 may extend radially outward from the centerline axis c . although , it is to be construed that any orientation of the ribs with respect to the centerline axis c may be utilized . additionally , the ribs 27 may include one or more notches 29 fashioned therein , which may be used to locate a shipping core or shipping collar as will be discussed further in a subsequent paragraph . it is noted that any height of the ribs 27 may be chosen without limiting the scope of coverage of the embodiments of the subject invention . the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed with six ( 6 ) ribs 27 . however , the wire guiding device 1 may be constructed with any number of ribs 27 . with reference to fig4 , a shipping collar 31 may be included that sits on top of the wire guiding device 1 . the shipping collar 31 may be comprised of a continuously formed ring constructed from a semi - rigid or rigid material . the diameter of the shipping collar 31 may correspond to the position of the notches 29 formed in the ribs 27 as mentioned above . in this manner , the notches 29 function as a locater for positioning the shipping collar 31 . it is noted here that any width of the shipping collar 31 and the notches 29 may be chosen as is appropriate for use with the embodiments of the subject invention . the shipping collar 31 may be held in place by at least one cross member 34 , which may be a cross bar 34 ′. one or more the cross members 34 may span a diameter or chord of the shipping collar 31 and may be held in place by a band 37 fixedly connected to the drum 15 ′. in this way , the shipping collar 31 presses against the wire guiding device 1 during shipping of the wire to its destination thereby preventing unraveling of the wire 17 . the band 37 and cross member 34 may then be removed before use . it is noted that the shipping collar 31 may or may not be removed from the wire guiding device 1 . it will be readily seen that leaving the shipping collar 31 in place will add to the overall weight of the wire guiding device 1 increasing the force applied to the coil of wire 17 , which may be desirable for heavier gauge wire 17 . with reference now to fig3 a and 5 , the drum 15 ′ may be assembled from multiple components including a cylindrical mid - section 16 and first and second end members 18 . during the process of constructing the drum 15 ′, a ledge referred to as a chime 19 , may be fashioned at one or both ends of the drum 15 ′. to maintain contact between the wire guiding device 1 and the coiled wire 17 at all times , the wire guiding device 1 may include a step 39 formed between the base portion 3 and the side wall 22 . the step 39 may correspond dimensionally to the chime 19 . in this manner , as the height of the coiled wire 17 diminishes and the wire guiding device 1 approaches the bottom of the drum 15 ′, the step 39 allows the base portion 3 to maintain constant contact with the coiled 17 through the full length of the drum 15 ′. the invention has been described herein with reference to the preferred embodiment . obviously , modifications and alterations will occur to others upon a reading and understanding of this specification . it is intended to include all such modifications and alternations in so far as they come within the scope of the appended claims or the equivalence thereof .	1
reference will now be made in detail to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention , examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings . wherever possible , the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts . the term of a singular expression should be understood to include a multiple expression as well as the singular expression if there is no specific definition in the context . the terms such as “ the first ” and “ the second ” are used only to differentiate one element from other elements . thus , a scope of claims is not limited by these terms . also , it should be understood that the term such as “ include ” or “ have ” does not preclude existence or possibility of one or more features , numbers , steps , operations , elements , parts or their combinations . it should be understood that the term “ at least one ” includes all combinations related with any one item . for example , “ at least one among a first element , a second element and a third element ” may include all combinations of two or more elements selected from the first , second and third elements as well as each element of the first , second and third elements . also , if it is mentioned that a first element is positioned “ on or above ” a second element , it should be understood that the first and second elements may be brought into contact with each other , or a third element may be interposed between the first and second elements . hereinafter , a foldable display apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings . wherever possible , the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts . also , in the following description of the present invention , if detailed description of elements or functions known in respect of the present invention is determined to make the subject matter of the present invention unnecessarily obscure , the detailed description will be omitted . fig1 schematically illustrates a foldable display apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention . fig2 is an exploded perspective view illustrating a foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention . referring to fig1 and 2 , the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention may include a flexible display panel 100 , a first rear cover 200 , a second rear cover 300 , a hinge 400 and a front cover 500 . the flexible display panel 100 may be a flexible organic light emitting display panel , a flexible electrophoretic display panel or a flexible electro - wetting display panel . the flexible display panel 100 may include a display area 112 for displaying an image by a pixel array provided with a plurality of pixels . the display area 112 may include a first display area da 1 , a second display area da 2 and a bending display area bda . the first display area da 1 may be defined with a first area of the flexible display panel 100 positioned at one side of the bending display area bda in the display area 112 , and the second display area da 2 may be defined with a second area of the flexible display panel 100 positioned at the other side of the bending display area bda in the display area 112 . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded into the flat state , the first display area da 1 , the second display area da 2 and the bending display area bda constitute one display area 112 to provide a relatively large screen . if the flexible display panel 100 is bent in accordance with a predetermined curvature with respect to the bending display area bda , an image is not displayed on the display area 112 . additionally , the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention may further include a driving integrated circuit 120 and a flexible circuit film 130 . the driving integrated circuit 120 is attached to a chip mounting area prepared in the flexible display panel 100 by a chip bonding process . the driving integrated circuit 120 drives the pixels formed in the display area 112 on the basis of data signal and pixel driving signal supplied through a display pad portion to display an image . additionally , the driving integrated circuit 120 is mounted on the flexible circuit film 130 , and is connected with the pixel array . the flexible circuit film 130 is attached to the display pad portion prepared in the flexible display panel 100 by a film attachment process . the flexible circuit film 130 transmits various power and signals supplied from a system driver ( not shown ) to the driving integrated circuit 120 . the flexible circuit film 130 may be formed of tcp ( tape carrier package ), cof ( chip on flexible board or chip on film ), or fpc ( flexible printed circuit ). herein , one end of the flexible circuit film 130 is attached to the display pad portion , and the other end of the flexible circuit film 130 is connected with the system driver provided in a receiving space of the second rear cover 200 . a rear surface of the flexible display panel 100 may be supported by a flexible supporting plate 140 . the flexible display panel 100 is maintained in the flat state by the use of flexible supporting plate 140 which is attached to the entire rear surface of the flexible display panel 100 . the flexible supporting plate 140 may be formed of a plastic material , for example , any one of pi ( polyimide ), pet ( polyethyleneterephthalate ), pen ( polyethylenapthanate ), pc ( polycarbonate ), pnb ( polynorborneen ) and pes ( polyethersulfone ). herein , it is possible to omit the flexible supporting plate 140 . additionally , the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment may further include a touch screen ( not shown ) for a user interface by a user &# 39 ; s touch . the touch screen may be attached to the flexible display panel 100 , or may be provided inside the flexible display panel 100 for a process of forming the pixel array . the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention may further include a signal applying portion ( not shown ) extending from an edge of the flexible display panel 100 so as to have a predetermined width and length instead of the flexible circuit film 130 , wherein the signal applying portion ( not shown ) may be connected with the driving system . in this case , the flexible circuit film 130 is omitted . the first rear cover 200 receives and supports one side of the flexible display panel 100 corresponding to the first display area da 1 of the flexible display panel 100 . the first rear cover 200 is rotatably connected with one side of the hinge 400 . the second rear cover 300 receives and supports the other side of the flexible display panel 100 corresponding to the second display area da 2 of the flexible display panel 100 . the second rear cover 300 is rotatably connected with the other side of the hinge 400 . the hinge 400 is connected between the first rear cover 200 and the second rear cover 300 . the hinge 400 serves as a rotation axis for folding or unfolding of the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . especially , the hinge 400 guides the folding and unfolding of the flexible display panel 100 with respect to the bending display area bda , and supports the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 which is unfolded in the flat state or folded in accordance with a predetermined curvature . the hinge 400 supports the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 through a plurality of rear hinge covers engaged by an elastic axis member and connected with an inner side of the first rear cover 200 and an inner side of the second rear cover 300 . the hinge 400 enables the flexible display panel 100 to fold or unfold without bending by a change of interval between each of the plurality of rear hinge covers . when the flexile display panel 100 is folded with respect to the bending display area bda , each of the plurality of rear hinge covers is rotated so as to have a maximum large interval within a range enabling to engage the plurality of rear hinge covers in accordance with a bending - shape change of the elastic axis member so that the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 is folded with the predetermined curvature without bending the first and second display areas da 1 and da 2 of the flexible display panel 100 . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the plurality of rear hinge covers are rotated to be engaged in accordance with the elastic restoring force of the elastic axis member whose bending shape is changed , and are concentrated so that the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 is supported , and the entire area of the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded in the flat state . in this case , the flexible display panel 100 may be unfolded into the flat state by the elastic restoring force of the elastic axis members . except the rear hinge cover positioned in the center , the plurality of rear hinge covers may be symmetric with respect to the rear hinge cover positioned in the center . the front cover 500 , which is connected with the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 , covers a front edge of the flexible display panel 100 . the front cover 500 according to one example may include a front upper cover 510 , a front lower cover 520 and a pair of front central covers 530 . the front upper cover 510 is connected with the first rear cover 200 to cover the front edge adjacent to the first display area da 1 of the flexible display panel 100 . that is , the front upper cover 510 covers only upper side and left and right sides of the first display area da 1 except the first display area da 1 and the bending display area bda adjacent to the first display area da 1 . the front upper cover 510 may be formed of a hard material . the front lower cover 520 may be connected with the second rear cover 300 to cover the front edge adjacent to the second display area da 2 of the flexible display panel 100 . that is , the front lower cover 520 covers only lower side and left and right sides of the second display area da 2 except the second display area da 2 and the bending display area bda adjacent to the second display area da 2 . the front lower cover 620 may be formed of a hard material . the pair of front central covers 530 may be connected between the front upper cover 510 and the front lower cover 520 to cover the front edge adjacent to the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . that is , the pair of front central covers 530 cover only the left and right sides of the bending display area bda . the pair of front central covers 530 may be formed of a soft material or a soft material with wrinkles . in this case , each of the front upper cover 510 and the front lower cover 520 and the connection portion between the front central covers 530 of one pair may overlap with each other so as to improve formability and adhesiveness . in the foldable display apparatus according to one example , the interval between each of the plurality of rear hinge covers engaged with each other is changed according to the folding or unfolded state of the flexible display panel 100 , whereby the flexible display panel 100 is folded or unfolded without bending . also , in case of the foldable display apparatus according to one example of the present invention , the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded in the flat state in accordance with the elastic restoring force of the plurality of elastic axis members so that it is possible to improve user &# 39 ; s ease for the unfolding of the flexible display panel 100 . fig3 is an exploded perspective view illustrating the first and second rear covers and the hinge shown in fig2 . fig4 is a cross sectional view along i - i ′ of fig2 . fig5 is a cross sectional view along ii - ii ′ of fig2 . referring to fig2 to 5 , the first rear cover 200 according to one example receives and supports one side of the flexible display panel 100 . the first rear cover 200 according to one example may include a first edge 231 , a first bottom portion 210 , a first sidewall 220 , a first panel supporting portion 230 , a pair of first portion protrusions 240 and a plurality of first cover protrusions 250 . the first bottom portion 210 covers a rear surface of one side of the flexible display panel 100 . the first sidewall 220 is vertically provided at lateral sides of the first bottom portion 210 connected with one side of the hinge 400 except an inner lateral side of the first bottom portion 210 to surround first area lateral sides of the flexible display panel 100 supported on the first bottom portion 210 . the first sidewall 220 protects each lateral side of the flexible display panel 100 from an external shock . the first panel supporting portion 230 is vertically provided in the inner lateral side of the first bottom portion 210 connected with one side of the hinge 400 to support the flexible display panel 100 . a height from the first bottom portion 210 to the first panel supporting portion 230 is lower than a height of the first sidewall 220 . in one embodiment , the height of an upper surface of the first panel supporting portion 230 is lower than the height of the upper surface of the first side wall 220 . the difference in the height of the upper surface of the first panel supporting portion 230 and the upper surface of the first side wall is equal to the thickness of the flexible display panel 100 . additionally , the upper surface of the first panel supporting portion 230 may be connected with a predetermined portion of a rear surface of the first display area da 1 of the flexible display panel 100 adjacent to the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 by the use of adhesive member ( not shown ) such as adhesive or double - sided tape . the pair of first portion protrusions 240 may protrude from the first sidewall 220 confronting one side of the hinge 400 toward the hinge 400 . that is , each of the first portion protrusions 240 of one pair is provided at a predetermined distance ( d ) from an upper surface of the first sidewall 220 , and each of the first portion protrusions 240 of one pair protrudes from an inner lateral side of the first sidewall 220 facing a first direction ( x ) toward the hinge 400 to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ). accordingly , a stepped portion is prepared between the first sidewall 220 and each of the first portion protrusions 240 of one pair . additionally , a protruding end in each of the first portion protrusions 240 of one pair directly confronting the hinge 400 may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the hinge 400 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 are provided at fixed intervals in a lateral side of the first panel supporting portion 230 , and more particularly , an inner sidewall 232 of the first panel supporting portion 230 directly confronting one side of the hinge 400 . that is , the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 protrude from the inner sidewall 232 of the first panel supporting portion 230 toward the hinge 400 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ). each of the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 has a first axis supporting hole 252 prepared in the center thereof . the second rear cover 300 according to one example receives and supports the other side of the flexible display panel 100 . the second rear cover 300 may include a second bottom portion 310 , a second sidewall 320 , a second panel supporting portion 330 , a second edge 331 , a pair of second portion protrusions 340 and a plurality of second cover protrusions 350 . the second rear cover 300 is symmetric in structure to the first rear cover 200 with respect to the hinge 400 . the second bottom portion 310 covers a rear surface of the other side of the flexible display panel 100 . the second sidewall 320 is vertically provided at lateral sides of the second bottom portion 310 connected with the other side of the hinge 400 except an inner lateral side of the second bottom portion 310 to surround second area lateral sides of the flexible display panel 100 supported on the second bottom portion 310 . the second sidewall 320 protects each lateral side of the flexible display panel 100 from an external shock . the second panel supporting portion 330 is vertically provided in the inner lateral side of the second bottom portion 310 connected with the other side of the hinge 400 to support the flexible display panel 100 . a height from the second bottom portion 310 to the second panel supporting portion 330 is lower than a height of the second sidewall 320 . in one embodiment , the height of an upper surface of the second panel supporting portion 330 is lower than the height of the upper surface of the second side wall 320 . the difference in the height of the upper surface of the second panel supporting portion 330 and the upper surface of the second side wall is equal to the thickness of the flexible display panel 100 . additionally , the upper surface of the second panel supporting portion 330 may be connected with a predetermined portion of a rear surface of the second display area da 2 of the flexible display panel 100 adjacent to the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 by the use of adhesive member ( not shown ) such as adhesive or double - sided tape . the pair of second portion protrusions 340 may protrude from the second sidewall 320 confronting the other side of the hinge 400 toward the hinge 400 . that is , each of the second portion protrusions 340 of one pair is provided at a predetermined distance ( d ) from an upper surface of the second sidewall 320 , and each of the second portion protrusions 340 of one pair protrudes from an inner lateral side of the second sidewall 320 facing the first direction ( x ) toward the hinge 400 to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ). accordingly , a stepped portion is prepared between the second sidewall 320 and each of the second portion protrusions 340 of one pair . additionally , a protruding end in each of the second portion protrusions 340 of one pair directly confronting the hinge 400 may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the hinge 400 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 are provided at fixed intervals in a lateral side of the second panel supporting portion 330 , and more particularly , an inner sidewall 332 of the second panel supporting portion 330 directly confronting the other side of the hinge 400 . that is , the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 protrude from the inner sidewall 332 of the second panel supporting portion 330 toward the hinge 400 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ). each of the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 has a second axis supporting hole 352 prepared in the center thereof . the hinge 400 according to one example may include a first rear hinge cover 410 , a second rear hinge cover 420 and a third rear hinge cover 430 . the first rear hinge cover 410 is rotatably connected with the first rear cover 200 by a first elastic axis member 410 a . as shown in fig4 to 6 , the first rear hinge cover 410 according to one example may include a first lower supporting bar 411 , a pair of first edge sidewalls 412 , a first central supporting bar 413 , a first upper supporting bar 414 , a plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 , a plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 and a pair of first rotation axes 417 . the first lower supporting bar 411 is prepared in a rectangular shape whose length is the same as the length of the first edge 231 of the first rear cover 200 . the pair of first edge sidewalls 412 is provided to have a predetermined height in both sides of the first lower supporting bar 411 . the pair of first edge sidewalls 412 may have a third axis supporting hole 412 a into which the first elastic axis member 410 a is inserted . the first central supporting bar 413 is vertically prepared in an upper surface of the first lower supporting bar 411 . the first central supporting bar 413 may be vertically prepared in an outer side of the first lower supporting bar 411 adjacent to the second rear cover 300 . the first upper supporting bar 414 is prepared in an upper surface of each of the first central supporting bar 413 and the pair of first edge sidewalls 412 while being overlapped with the first lower supporting bar 411 . accordingly , the first central supporting bar 413 , the first upper supporting bar 414 and the remaining central portions of the first lower supporting bar 411 except both sides of the first lower supporting bar 411 may have a cross section of ‘[’ shape . the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 are provided at fixed intervals along a length direction ( y ) of the first central supporting bar 413 , wherein each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 protrudes toward the first rear cover 200 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ) from an outer surface of the first central supporting bar 413 . in this case , the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 alternates with the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 prepared in the first rear cover 200 , whereby the first rear hinge cover 410 has a plurality of first outer insertion spaces 413 a , wherein each of the plurality of first outer insertion spaces 413 a is prepared between each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 . each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 in the first rear cover 200 . that is , each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 , and each of the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of first outer insertion spaces 413 a . accordingly , the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 are engaged with the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 , wherein the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 alternate with the plurality of first cover protrusions 250 . each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 has a fourth axis supporting hole 415 a overlapped with the third axis supporting hole 412 a . the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 are provided at fixed intervals along the length direction ( y ) of the first central supporting bar 413 , wherein each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 protrudes toward the second rear cover 300 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ) from an inner surface of the first central supporting bar 413 . each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 has a fifth axis supporting hole 416 a . with respect to the length direction ( y ) of the first central supporting bar 413 , a first inner insertion space 413 b is prepared between each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 . each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 is prepared between each of the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 . that is , the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 and the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 , which alternate with each other , are provided in a zigzag pattern with the first central supporting bar 413 provided in - between . the pair of first rotation axes 417 is prepared at both sides of the first upper supporting bar 414 , wherein the pair of first rotation axes 417 serve as a rotation axis for the first rear hinge cover 410 . each of the first rotation axes 417 included in one pair according to one example may include a first supporting sidewall 417 a , a first outer portion protrusion 417 b and a first inner portion protrusion 417 c . the first supporting sidewall 417 a is vertically prepared in an upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 . the first supporting sidewall 417 a supports the first outer portion protrusion 417 b and the first inner portion protrusion 417 c . the first outer portion protrusion 417 b , which overlaps with the upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 , protrudes to have a predetermined length from an upper outer surface of the first supporting sidewall 417 a . in this case , the first outer portion protrusion 417 b has a protruding length which is not protruding out of a vertical line vl vertically extending from an outer short side of the first lower supporting bar 411 , and also overlaps with an upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 . additionally , a protruding end of the first outer portion protrusion 417 b may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the adjacent first rear cover 200 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . the first outer portion protrusion 417 b is overlapped with the upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 by the first supporting sidewall 417 a , and is also provided at a predetermined distance from the upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 so that a first protrusion insertion space 417 d is prepared between the first outer portion protrusion 417 b and the first upper supporting bar 414 being overlapped with each other . that is , the first outer portion protrusion 417 b and the first upper supporting bar 414 are provided in parallel with the first protrusion insertion space 417 d provided in - between . when the first portion protrusion 240 prepared in the first rear cover 200 is inserted into the first protrusion insertion space 417 d , the first rear hinge cover 410 is engaged and connected with the first rear cover 200 . the first inner portion protrusion 417 c protrudes from an inner surface of the first supporting sidewall 417 a , wherein the first inner portion protrusion 417 c has a predetermined length whose direction is in opposition to the protruding direction of the first outer portion protrusion 417 b while being parallel to the upper surface of the first upper supporting bar 414 . a protruding length of the first inner portion protrusion 417 c from the first supporting sidewall 417 a may be the same as a protruding length of the first outer portion protrusion 417 b from the first supporting sidewall 417 a . the first inner portion protrusion 417 c is engaged and connected with the third rear hinge cover 430 . additionally , a protruding end of the first inner portion protrusion 417 c may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the third rear hinge cover 430 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . referring once again to fig2 to 5 , the second rear hinge cover 420 is rotatably connected with the second rear cover 300 by the second elastic axis member 420 a . as shown in fig4 and 7 , the second rear hinge cover 420 according to one example may include a second lower supporting bar 421 , a pair of second edge sidewalls 422 , a second central supporting bar 423 , a second upper supporting bar 424 , a plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 , a plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 and a pair of second rotation axes 427 . the second rear hinge cover 420 is symmetric to the first rear hinge cover 410 with respect to the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby a detailed description for the same parts will be omitted , and a brief description for the second rear hinge cover 420 will be shown as follows . the second lower supporting bar 421 is prepared in a rectangular shape whose length is the same as a second side 331 of the second rear cover 300 . the pair of second edge sidewalls 422 may be provided in both sides of the second lower supporting bar 421 , and the pair of second edge sidewalls 422 may have a sixth axis supporting hole 422 a into which the second elastic axis member 420 a is inserted . the second central supporting bar 423 is vertically prepared in an upper surface of the second lower supporting bar 421 . the second upper supporting bar 424 is prepared in an upper surface of each of the second central supporting bar 423 and the pair of second edge sidewalls 422 while being overlapped with the second lower supporting bar 421 . accordingly , the second central supporting bar 423 , the second upper supporting bar 424 and the remaining central portions of the second lower supporting bar 421 except both sides of the second lower supporting bar 421 may have a cross section of ‘]’ shape . the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 protrude from the outer surface of the second central supporting bar 423 toward the second rear cover 300 . in this case , the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 alternate with the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 prepared in the second rear cover 300 , whereby the second rear hinge cover 420 has a plurality of second outer insertion spaces 423 a , wherein each of the plurality of second outer insertion spaces 423 a is prepared between each of the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 . each of the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 in the second rear cover 300 . that is , each of the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 , and each of the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 is inserted into each of the plurality of second outer insertion spaces 423 a . accordingly , the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 are engaged with the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 , wherein the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 alternate with the plurality of second cover protrusions 350 . each of the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 has a seventh axis supporting hole 425 a overlapped with the sixth axis supporting hole 422 a . the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 protrude from the inner surface of the second central supporting bar 423 toward the first rear cover 200 . each of the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 has an eighth axis supporting hole 426 a . with respect to the length direction ( y ) of the second central supporting bar 423 , a second inner insertion space 423 b is prepared between each of the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 . accordingly , the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 and the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 , which alternate with each other , are provided in a zigzag pattern with the second central supporting bar 423 provided in - between . the pair of second rotation axes 427 is prepared at both sides of the second upper supporting bar 424 , wherein the pair of second rotation axes 427 serve as a rotation axis for the second rear hinge cover 420 . each of the second rotation axes 427 included in one pair according to one example may include a second supporting sidewall 427 a , a second outer portion protrusion 427 b and a second inner portion protrusion 427 c . the second supporting sidewall 427 a is vertically prepared in an upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 . the second outer portion protrusion 427 b , which is overlapped with the upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 , protrudes to have a predetermined length from an upper outer surface of the second supporting sidewall 427 a . a protruding end of the second outer portion protrusion 427 b may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the adjacent second rear cover 300 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . in this case , the second outer portion protrusion 427 b has a protruding length which is not protruding out of a vertical line vl vertically extending from an outer short side of the second lower supporting bar 421 , and is also overlapped with an upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 . the second outer portion protrusion 427 b is overlapped with the upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 by the second supporting sidewall 427 a , and is also provided at a predetermined distance from the upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 so that a second protrusion insertion space 427 d is prepared between the second outer portion protrusion 427 b and the second upper supporting bar 424 being overlapped with each other . that is , the second outer portion protrusion 427 b and the second upper supporting bar 424 are provided in parallel with the second protrusion insertion space 427 d provided in - between . according as the second portion protrusion 340 prepared in the second rear cover 300 is inserted into the second protrusion insertion space 427 d , the second rear hinge cover 420 is engaged and connected with the second rear cover 300 . the second inner portion protrusion 427 c protrudes from an inner surface of the second supporting sidewall 427 a , wherein the second inner portion protrusion 427 c has a predetermined length whose direction is in opposition to the protruding direction of the second outer portion protrusion 427 b while being parallel to the upper surface of the second upper supporting bar 424 . additionally , a protruding end of the second inner portion protrusion 427 c may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the third rear hinge cover 430 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . referring once again to fig2 to 5 , the third rear hinge cover 420 is provided between the first and second rear hinge covers 410 and 420 , whereby the first and second rear hinge covers 410 and 420 are rotatably supported by the third and fourth elastic axis members 430 a and 430 b . the third rear hinge cover 430 is a rear surface central hinge cover , wherein the third rear hinge cover 430 serves as a folding reference axis when the flexible display panel 100 is folded . the first rear hinge cover 410 and the second rear hinge cover 420 are folded with respect to the third rear hinge cover 430 . as shown in fig4 and 8 , the third rear hinge cover 430 according to one example may include a third lower supporting bar 431 , a pair of third edge sidewalls 432 , a third central supporting bar 433 , a third upper supporting bar 434 , a pair of third outer connection protrusion 435 , a plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 and a pair of third rotation axes 437 . the third lower supporting bar 431 is prepared in a rectangular shape whose length is the same as those of the first and second rear hinge bars 411 and 421 . the pair of third edge sidewalls 432 is provided to have a predetermined height in both sides of the third lower supporting bar 431 . the pair of third edge sidewalls 432 may have ninth and tenth axis supporting holes 432 a and 432 b into which the third and fourth elastic axis members 430 a and 430 b are respectively inserted . in this case , the ninth axis supporting hole 432 a passes through the outer side of each of the third edge sidewalls 432 of one pair in a length direction ( y ) of the third lower supporting bar 431 , and the tenth axis supporting hole 432 b passes through the inner side of each of the third edge sidewalls 432 of one pair in the length direction ( y ) of the third lower supporting bar 431 . the third central supporting bar 433 is vertically prepared in the center of an upper surface of the third lower supporting bar 431 . the third upper supporting bar 434 is prepared in the upper surface of each of the third central supporting bar 433 and the pair of third edge sidewalls 432 while being overlapped with the third lower supporting bar 431 . accordingly , the third central supporting bar 433 , the third upper supporting bar 434 and the remaining central portions of the third lower supporting bar 431 except both sides of the third lower supporting bar 431 may have a cross section of ‘ i ’ shape . the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 are provided at fixed intervals along the length direction ( y ) of the third central supporting bar 433 , wherein each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 protrudes toward the first rear cover 200 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ) from an outer surface of the third central supporting bar 433 . in this case , the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 alternate with the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the third rear hinge cover 430 has a plurality of third outer insertion spaces 433 a , wherein each of the plurality of third outer insertion spaces 433 a is prepared between each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 . each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 is inserted into each of the plurality of first inner insertion spaces 413 b prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 . that is , each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 is inserted into the space between each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 , and each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 is inserted into each of the plurality of third outer insertion spaces 433 a . accordingly , the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 are engaged with the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 , wherein the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 alternate with the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 . each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 may have an eleventh axis supporting hole ( not shown ) overlapped with the ninth axis supporting hole 432 a . the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 are provided at fixed intervals along the length direction ( y ) of the third central supporting bar 433 , wherein each of the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 protrudes toward the second rear cover 300 so as to have a predetermined length in the first direction ( x ) from an inner surface of the third central supporting bar 433 . each of the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 has a twelfth axis supporting hole 436 a . with respect to the length direction ( y ) of the third central supporting bar 433 , a third inner insertion space 433 b is prepared between each of the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 . each of the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 is prepared between each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 . that is , the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 and the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 , which alternate with each other , are provided in a zigzag pattern with the third central supporting bar 433 provided in - between . the pair of third rotation axes 437 is prepared at both sides of the third upper supporting bar 434 , wherein the pair of third rotation axes 437 serve as a rotation axis for each of the first and second rear hinge covers 410 and 420 . each of the third rotation axes 437 included in one pair according to one example may include a third supporting sidewall 437 a , a third outer portion protrusion 437 b and a third inner portion protrusion 437 c . the third supporting sidewall 437 a is vertically prepared in the center of an upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 to support the third outer portion protrusion 437 b and the third inner portion protrusion 437 c . the third outer portion protrusion 437 b , which is overlapped with the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 , protrudes to have a predetermined length from an upper outer surface of the third supporting sidewall 437 a . in this case , the third outer portion protrusion 437 b has a protruding length which is not protruding out of a vertical line vl vertically extending from an outer short side of the third lower supporting bar 431 , and is also overlapped with an upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 . additionally , a protruding end of the third outer portion protrusion 437 b may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the first rear hinge cover 410 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . the third outer portion protrusion 437 b is overlapped with the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 by the third supporting sidewall 437 a , and is also provided at a predetermined distance from the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 so that a third protrusion insertion space 437 d is prepared between the third outer portion protrusion 437 b and the third upper supporting bar 434 being overlapped with each other . that is , the third outer portion protrusion 437 b and the third upper supporting bar 434 are provided in parallel with the third protrusion insertion space 437 d provided in - between . according as the first inner portion protrusion 417 c prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 is inserted into the third protrusion insertion space 437 d , the third rear hinge cover 430 is engaged and connected with the first rear hinge cover 410 . the third inner portion protrusion 437 c , which is overlapped with the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 , protrudes to have a predetermined length from an upper inner surface of the third supporting sidewall 437 a . in this case , the third inner portion protrusion 437 c has a protruding length which is not protruding out of a vertical line vl vertically extending from an inner short side of the third lower supporting bar 431 , and is also overlapped with an upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 . additionally , a protruding end of the third inner portion protrusion 437 c may have a cross section with a curved - line surface for smooth connection and rotation with the second rear hinge cover 420 , for example , a semicircle - shaped cross section . the third inner portion protrusion 437 c is overlapped with the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 by the third supporting sidewall 437 a , and is also provided at a predetermined distance from the upper surface of the third upper supporting bar 434 so that a fourth protrusion insertion space 437 e is prepared between the third inner portion protrusion 437 c and the third upper supporting bar 434 being overlapped with each other . that is , the third inner portion protrusion 437 c and the third upper supporting bar 434 are provided in parallel with the fourth protrusion insertion space 437 e provided in - between . according as the second inner portion protrusion 427 c prepared in the second rear hinge cover 410 is inserted into the fourth protrusion insertion space 437 e , the third rear hinge cover 430 is engaged and connected with the second rear hinge cover 420 . additionally , the hinge 400 according to one example may further include a fourth rear hinge cover 440 and a fifth rear hinge cover 450 . the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is rotatably connected between the first rear hinge cover 410 and the third rear hinge cover 430 . for example , the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is rotatably connected with the first rear hinge cover 410 by the fifth elastic axis member 440 a , and is also rotatably connected with the third rear hinge cover 430 by the third elastic axis member 430 a . in the same manner as the first rear hinge cover 410 shown in fig6 , the fourth rear hinge cover 440 may include a first lower supporting bar 411 , a pair of first edge sidewalls 412 , a first central supporting bar 413 , a first upper supporting bar 414 , a plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 , a plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 and a pair of first rotation axes 417 , whereby the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts , and a detailed description for the same parts will be omitted . each of a plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is inserted into each first inner insertion space 413 b provided between each of the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 . accordingly , the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 are engaged with the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 , wherein the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 alternate with the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 . each of a plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is inserted into each third outer insertion space 433 a provided between each of the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 . accordingly , the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 are engaged with the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 , wherein the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 alternate with the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 . a pair of first rotation axes 417 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 may include a first outer portion protrusion 417 b , a first inner portion protrusion 417 c and a first protrusion insertion space 417 d . the first outer portion protrusion 417 b of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with and also connected with the first inner portion protrusion 417 c of the first rear hinge cover 410 . that is , the first inner portion protrusion 417 c of the first rear hinge cover 410 is inserted into the first protrusion insertion space 417 d of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 so that the first outer portion protrusion 417 b of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with the first inner portion protrusion 417 c of the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is engaged and connected with the first rear hinge cover 410 . when the first inner portion protrusion 417 c of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is inserted into the third protrusion insertion space 437 d of the third rear hinge cover 430 , the first inner portion protrusion 417 c of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with the third outer portion protrusion 437 b of the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the fourth rear hinge cover 440 is engaged and connected with the third rear hinge cover 430 . the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is rotatably connected between the second rear hinge cover 420 and the third rear hinge cover 430 . for example , the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is rotatably connected with the second rear hinge cover 420 by the sixth elastic axis member 450 a , and is also rotatably connected with the third rear hinge cover 430 by the fourth elastic axis member 430 b . in the same manner as the second rear hinge cover 420 shown in fig7 , the fifth rear hinge cover 450 may include a second lower supporting bar 421 , a pair of second edge sidewalls 422 , a second central supporting bar 423 , a second upper supporting bar 424 , a plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 , a plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 and a pair of second rotation axes 427 , whereby the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts , and a detailed description for the same parts will be omitted . each of a plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is inserted into each second inner insertion space 423 b provided between each of the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the second rear hinge cover 420 . accordingly , the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 are engaged with the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the second rear hinge cover 420 , wherein the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 425 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 alternate with the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the second rear hinge cover 420 . each of a plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is inserted into each third inner insertion space 433 b provided between each of the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 . accordingly , the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 are engaged with the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 , wherein the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 426 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 alternate with the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 . a pair of second rotation axes 427 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 may include a second outer portion protrusion 427 b , a second inner portion protrusion 427 c and a second protrusion insertion space 427 d . the first outer portion protrusion 427 b of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with and also connected with the second inner portion protrusion 427 c of the second rear hinge cover 420 . that is , the second inner portion protrusion 427 c of the second rear hinge cover 420 is inserted into the second protrusion insertion space 427 d of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 so that the second outer portion protrusion 427 b of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with the second inner portion protrusion 427 c of the second rear hinge cover 420 , whereby the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is engaged and connected with the second rear hinge cover 420 . according as the second inner portion protrusion 427 c of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is inserted into the fourth protrusion insertion space 437 e of the third rear hinge cover 430 , the second inner portion protrusion 427 c of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is overlapped in an up - and - down direction with the third inner portion protrusion 437 c of the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the fifth rear hinge cover 450 is engaged and connected with the third rear hinge cover 430 . fig9 illustrates the first to sixth elastic axis members shown in fig3 , which shows the changed states of the first to sixth elastic axis members in accordance with the folding of the flexible display panel . referring to fig9 in connection with fig3 to 5 , each of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a according to one example may be an elastic body with an elastic restoring force , for example , coil spring . the first elastic axis member 410 a is alternately inserted between the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 . that is , after the first elastic axis member 410 a is inserted into the third axis supporting hole 412 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 , the first elastic axis member 410 a is alternately inserted into the plurality of first axis supporting holes 252 prepared in the first rear cover 200 and the plurality of fourth axis supporting holes 415 a prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 to support the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the first elastic axis member 410 is changed to the zigzag shape between the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 in accordance with the rotation angle of each of the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 are rotated without separation . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the first elastic axis member 410 a provides the elastic restoring force to the first rear cover 200 and the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 and the plurality of first cover protrusions 240 prepared in the first rear cover 200 are engaged and rotated without separation . the fifth elastic axis member 440 a is alternately inserted between the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 . that is , after the fifth elastic axis member 440 a is inserted into the third axis supporting hole 412 a prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 , the fifth elastic axis member 440 a is alternately inserted into the plurality of fifth axis supporting holes 416 a prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 and the plurality of fourth axis supporting holes 415 a prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 to support the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the fifth elastic axis member 440 a is changed to the zigzag shape between the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 in accordance with the rotation angle of each of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 are rotated without separation . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the fifth elastic axis member 440 a provides an elastic restoring force to the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the first rear hinge cover 410 , whereby the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the first rear hinge cover 410 and the plurality of first outer connection protrusions 415 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 are engaged and rotated without separation . the sixth elastic axis member 450 a is alternately inserted between the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 . that is , after the sixth elastic axis member 450 a is inserted into the sixth axis supporting hole 422 a prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 , the sixth elastic axis member 450 a is alternately inserted into the plurality of eighth axis supporting holes 426 a prepared in the second rear hinge cover 420 and the plurality of seventh axis supporting holes 425 a prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 to support the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the sixth elastic axis member 450 a is changed to a zigzag shape between the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 in accordance with the rotation angle of each of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 , whereby the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 are rotated without separation . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the sixth elastic axis member 450 a provides an elastic restoring force to the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the second rear hinge cover 420 , whereby the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 426 prepared in the second rear hinge cover 420 and the plurality of second inner connection protrusions 425 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 are engaged and rotated without separation . the third elastic axis member 430 a is alternately inserted between the third rear hinge cover 430 and the fourth rear hinge cover 440 . that is , after the third elastic axis member 430 a is inserted into the ninth axis supporting hole 432 a prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 , the third elastic axis member 430 a is alternately inserted into the plurality of fifth axis supporting holes 416 a prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the plurality of eleventh axis supporting holes ( not shown ) prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 to support the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the third rear hinge cover 430 . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the third elastic axis member 430 a is changed to a zigzag shape between the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the third rear hinge cover 430 in accordance with the rotation angle of each of the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the third rear hinge cover 430 are rotated without separation . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the third elastic axis member 430 a provides an elastic restoring force to the fourth rear hinge cover 440 and the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the plurality of third outer connection protrusions 435 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 and the plurality of first inner connection protrusions 416 prepared in the fourth rear hinge cover 440 are engaged and rotated without separation . the fourth elastic axis member 430 b is alternately inserted between the third rear hinge cover 430 and the fifth rear hinge cover 450 . that is , after the fourth elastic axis member 430 b is inserted into the tenth axis supporting hole 432 b prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 , the fourth elastic axis member 430 b is alternately inserted into the plurality of eighth axis supporting holes 426 a prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the plurality of twelfth axis supporting holes 436 a prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 to support the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the third rear hinge cover 430 . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the fourth elastic axis member 430 b is changed to a zigzag shape between the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the third rear hinge cover 430 in accordance with the rotation angle of each of the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the third rear hinge cover 430 are rotated without separation . when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded , the fourth elastic axis member 430 b provides an elastic restoring force to the fifth rear hinge cover 450 and the third rear hinge cover 430 , whereby the plurality of third inner connection protrusions 436 prepared in the third rear hinge cover 430 and the plurality of second outer connection protrusions 426 prepared in the fifth rear hinge cover 450 are engaged and rotated without separation . fig1 a is a rear perspective view illustrating the unfolded state of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention . fig1 b is a cross sectional view along of fig1 a . fig1 c is a cross sectional view along iv - iv ′ of fig1 a . hereinafter , the unfolded state of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to fig1 a , 10b and 10c . as shown in fig1 a , in case of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are unfolded , the first and second display area and the bending display area of the flexible display panel are unfolded by the elastic restoring force of each of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a of the hinge 400 to realize a large - sized screen . as shown in fig1 b , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are unfolded , the portion protrusions 240 , 340 , 417 b , 417 c , 427 b , 427 c , 437 b and 437 c prepared in the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 and the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are overlapped with each other , and are engaged in an up - and - down direction . accordingly , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are supported by the first portion protrusion 240 of the first rear cover 200 and the second portion protrusion 340 of the second rear cover 300 , whereby the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are maintained in the flat state . thus , both sides of the bending display area bda defined in the flexible display panel 100 are supported by the connection protrusions 417 b , 427 b and 437 b prepared in the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 to maintain the flat state . as shown in fig1 c , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are unfolded , the connection protrusions 250 , 350 , 415 , 425 , 426 , 435 and 436 prepared in the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 and the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are alternately engaged by the elastic restoring force of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a . accordingly , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are supported by the first cover protrusion 250 of the first rear cover 200 and the second cover protrusion 350 of the second rear cover 300 to maintain the flat state . thus , the central portion of the bending display area bda defined in the flexible display panel 100 , except both sides of the bending display area bda , is supported by the upper supporting bars 414 , 424 and 434 of the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 shown in fig6 to 8 to maintain the flat state . fig1 a is a rear perspective view illustrating the foldable display apparatus in a half - folded state according to one embodiment of the present invention . fig1 b is a cross sectional view along v - v ′ of fig1 a . fig1 c is a cross sectional view along vi - vi ′ of fig1 a hereinafter , the half - folding state of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail as follows . as shown in fig1 a , in case of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention , if the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are rotated to face with each other , the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 43 b , 440 a and 450 a are changed to the zigzag shape in accordance to the rotation angle of each of the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 , whereby the first and fourth rear hinge covers 410 and 440 are rotated in a first rotation direction with respect to a rotation axis of the third rear hinge cover 430 , and the second and fifth rear hinge covers 420 and 450 are rotated in a second rotation direction which is opposite to the first rotation direction . thus , according as the interval between each of the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 is gradually increased , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are spaced apart from each other in a curve shape to form a bending guide surface . accordingly , the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . as shown in fig1 b , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are half - folded , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are respectively rotated in accordance with the shape change of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a . at this time , under the condition that each of the protrusions 240 , 340 , 417 c and 427 c prepared in the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 and the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 is used as a rotation axis ra , the first and fourth rear hinge covers 410 and 440 are rotated in a first rotation direction with respect to a rotation central axis of the third rear hinge cover 430 , and the second and fifth rear hinge covers 420 and 450 are rotated in a second rotation direction with respect to a rotation central axis of the third rear hinge cover 430 . thus , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are spaced apart from each other in a curve shape to form a bending guide surface of the curved shape . accordingly , the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . as shown in fig1 c , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are half - folded , the connection protrusions 250 , 350 , 415 , 425 , 426 , 435 and 436 prepared in the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 and the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are alternately spaced from each other in accordance with the shape change of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a . accordingly , the upper supporting bars 414 , 424 and 434 of the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 shown in fig6 to 8 are spaced apart from each other in a curve shape to form a bending guide surface of the curved shape . accordingly , the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . fig1 a is a rear perspective view illustrating the folding state of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention . fig1 b is a cross sectional view along vii - vii ′ of fig1 a . fig1 c is a cross sectional view along viii - viii ′ of fig1 a . hereinafter , the folding state of the foldable display device according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described as follows . as shown in fig1 a , in case of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are additionally rotated and folded , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are spaced from each other at maximum in accordance with the additional change of zigzag shape of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a to form a bending guide surface of a curved shape . thus , the bending display area of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . as shown in fig1 b , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are folded , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are rotated at maximum in accordance with the additional shape change of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a of the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 . at this time , under the condition that each of the portion protrusions 240 , 340 , 417 c and 427 c is used as a rotation axis ra , the first and fourth rear hinge covers 410 and 440 are rotated in a first rotation direction with respect to a rotation central axis of the third rear hinge cover 430 , and the second and fifth rear hinge covers 420 and 450 are rotated in a second rotation direction with respect to a rotation central axis of the third rear hinge cover 430 . accordingly , the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 are spaced from each other at maximum to form a bending guide surface of a curved shape . thus , the bending display area of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . as shown in fig1 c , when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are folded , the connection protrusions 250 , 350 , 415 , 425 , 426 , 435 and 436 are spaced at maximum from each other in accordance with the shape change of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a . accordingly , in case of the central portion of the bending display area bda except both sides of the bending display area bda defined in the flexible display panel 100 , the upper supporting bars 414 , 424 and 434 of the first to fifth rear hinge covers 410 , 420 , 430 , 440 and 450 shown in fig6 to 8 are spaced from each other to form a bending guide surface of a curved shape . thus , the bending display area of the flexible display panel is folded with a predetermined curvature along the bending guide surface . meanwhile , the flexible display panel 100 , which is folded with the curvature set in accordance with the folding of the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 , is semiautomatically unfolded in the flat state in accordance with the elastic restoring force of the first to sixth elastic axis members 410 a , 420 a , 430 a , 430 b , 440 a and 450 a which are changed from a zigzag type to a straight - line shape when the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are unfolded . in the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention , when the flexible display panel is folded , the interval between each of the plurality of rear hinge covers is changed in accordance with the shape change of the elastic axis member , whereby the bending guide surface of the curved line shape is formed so that it is possible to prevent the flexible display panel from being bent when the flexible display panel is folded or unfolded , thereby improving reliability of the flexible display panel . fig1 is an exploded perspective view illustrating a foldable display apparatus according to another embodiment . the embodiment of fig1 additionally providing a panel supporting frame . fig1 is a rear perspective view of a panel supporting frame shown in fig1 . fig1 is a cross sectional view along ix - ix ′ of fig1 . hereinafter , only the structure relating the panel supporting frame will be described in detail as follows . referring to fig1 to 15 , the panel supporting frame 600 according to one example is connected with first and second areas of the aforementioned flexible display panel 100 to support a bending display area bda . the panel supporting frame 600 according to one example is received in first and second rear covers 200 and 300 . that is , the panel supporting frame 600 is connected with a rear side of the flexible display panel 100 , wherein the panel supporting frame 600 guides folding and unfolding of the flexible display panel 100 with respect to the bending display area bda . to this end , the panel supporting frame 600 according to one example may include a bending member 611 and first and second supporting members 613 and 615 . the bending member 611 supports the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . the bending member 611 guides the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 to be bent with a predetermined curvature . the bending member 611 is not physically connected with the flexible display panel 100 by the use of adhesive member ( not shown ) such as adhesive or double - sided tape . the bending member 611 serves as a supporter for supporting a panel bending portion overlapped with the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . to this end , the bending member 611 may include any one material or two or more materials of soft materials , for example , rubber , silicon , polyurethane and polyvinyl chloride . the bending member 611 according to one example may include a body 611 a , a first outer protrusion 611 b and a second outer protrusion 611 c . the body 611 a is overlapped with the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 , wherein the body 611 a supports the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 or guides the bending of the bending display area bda . the body 611 a according to one example may include a bending portion ( a ) and first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ). the bending portion ( a ) is defined with the center of the body 611 a , and is overlapped with the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . the bending portion ( a ) is formed of a soft material so that the bending portion ( a ) is bent in accordance with the bending of the bending display area bda . a length of the bending portion ( a ) may be set to be identical to a length of the bending display area bda defined in the flexible display panel 100 with respect to a length direction ( x ) of the flexible display panel 100 , or may be set in accordance with the bending curvature of the bending display area bda . for example , a first length of the bending portion ( a ) is set in accordance with a folded radius circumference . a maximum length of the bending portion ( a ) is set to be 30 % or more than 30 % of the radius circumference so as to provide the smooth curvature , and also set to be less than 180 % of the radius circumference so as to maintain hardness of the bending member 611 , preferably . the first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ) are bending buffer areas , wherein the first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ) are prepared in both sides of the bending portion ( a ) while being in parallel to each other . the first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ) may be overlapped with inner sides of display areas ( da 1 , da 2 ) being in contact with the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . the first bending buffer ( b 1 ) is prepared at one side of the body 11 a , that is , one side of the bending portion ( a ), and the second bending buffer ( b 2 ) is prepared at the other side of the body 11 a , that is , the other side of the bending portion ( a ). in this case , a second length of each of the first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ) is set within a range of 10 %˜ 70 % of the length of the bending portion ( a ) so as to maintain hardness of the bending member 611 , preferably . each of the first and second bending buffers ( b 1 , b 2 ) is formed of a soft material so that it is possible to maintain the smooth curvature of the bending display area bda when the flexible display panel 100 is bent . the first outer protrusion 611 b is prepared at one side of the body 611 a , and is overlapped with the first supporting member 613 . the first outer protrusion 611 b according to one example , which protrudes toward the first supporting member 13 , has a predetermined length from one side of the body 611 a , and more particularly , a lower portion of a first long side of the body 611 a , and then the protruding first outer protrusion 611 b is overlapped with the inner side of the first supporting member 613 . the second outer protrusion 611 c is prepared at the other side of the body 611 a . with the body 11 a provided between the first outer protrusion 611 b and the second outer protrusion 611 c , the second outer protrusion 611 c is provided in parallel to the first outer protrusion 611 b , and is overlapped with the second supporting member 15 . the second outer protrusion 11 c according to one example , which protrudes toward the second supporting member 615 , has a predetermined length from the other side of the body 611 a , and more particularly , a lower portion of a second long side of the body 611 a , and then the protruding second outer protrusion 611 c is overlapped with the inner side of the second supporting member 615 . additionally , the bending member 611 according to the first embodiment of the present invention may further include a length compensation pattern 611 d prepared in a lower surface of the body 611 a in opposite to an upper surface of the body 611 a , wherein the upper surface of the body 611 a directly confronts the flexible display panel 100 . the length compensation pattern 611 d may be an uneven pattern with a plurality of hollows in the lower surface of the body 11 a , wherein the plurality of hollows included in the uneven pattern may be provided at fixed intervals along a length direction x ( or a short - side direction ) of the body 611 a while being in parallel to a width direction y ( or a long - side direction ) of the body 611 a . the uneven pattern 611 d according to one example may include a plurality of slits , wherein each of the slits may have a predetermined width , and the plurality of slits included in the uneven pattern 611 d may be provided in parallel to the long side of the body 611 a and are provided in the lower surface of the bending portion ( a ). the length compensation pattern 611 d compensates for a length change through a change of interval between the adjacent slits when the flexible display panel 100 is repetitively folded or unfolded so that it is possible to prevent the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 from being wrinkled , and to make the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 be bent with the predetermined curvature . a width and depth of each of the slits may be set in accordance with the bending curvature of the bending display area bda . additionally , the length compensation pattern 611 d may be prepared in the upper surface of the body 611 a , that is , a supporting surface of the body 611 a for supporting the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 . in this case , the uneven pattern may cause a sense of difference on a touch for the flexible display panel 100 . accordingly , the length compensation pattern 611 d is prepared in the lower surface of the body 611 a , preferably . the first supporting member 613 , which is connected with one side of the bending member 11 , supports the first display area ( da 1 ) of the flexible display panel 100 . the inner lateral side of the first supporting member 613 and one side of the bending member 611 are overlapped with each other , and are physically connected with each other as one body . also , the first supporting member 613 is physically connected with a first panel rear portion of the flexible display panel 100 overlapped with the first display area ( da 1 ) of the flexible display panel 100 , whereby the first panel rear portion is maintained in the flat state . to this end , the first supporting member 613 is formed of a hard material whose hardness is relatively higher than that of the bending member 611 , for example , plastic material or metal material . the first supporting member 613 according to one example may include a first base plate 613 a and a first inner protrusion 613 b . the first base plate 613 a is overlapped with the first display area ( da 1 ) of the flexible display panel 100 , wherein the first base plate 613 a supports the first panel rear portion of the flexible display panel 100 . in this case , the first base plate 613 a may be physically connected with the first panel rear portion by the use of adhesive member ( not shown ). an inner lateral side of the first base plate 613 a which directly confronts the first outer protrusion 611 b of the bending member 611 is physically connected with a lateral side of the first outer protrusion 611 b . the first inner protrusion 613 b is prepared at an inner lateral side of the first base plate 613 a , overlapped with the first outer protrusion 611 b of the bending member 611 , and physically connected with the upper surface of the first outer protrusion 611 b and one lateral side of the body 611 a . the first inner protrusion 613 b , which protrudes toward the bending member 611 , has a predetermined length from the inner lateral side of the first base plate 613 a , and more particularly , an upper portion of an inner short side of the first base plate 613 a , and then the protruding first inner protrusion 613 b is overlapped with the first outer protrusion 611 b of the bending member 611 . in this case , the first inner protrusion 613 b and the first outer protrusion 611 b may have the same length . a length in each of the first inner protrusion 613 b and the first outer protrusion 611 b may be set to be 10 % or more than 10 % of the length of the bending portion ( a ) so as to secure a sufficient attachment area ( or bonding area ) between the bending member 611 and the first supporting member 613 , and also to prevent a separation even in a repetitive folding . the first supporting member 613 according to one example may further include first and second rounding portion ( r 1 , r 2 ) prepared at corners of the first inner protrusion 613 b connected with the bending member 611 . the first rounding portion ( r 1 ) is prepared with a predetermined curvature at the corner between the first base plate 613 a and the first inner protrusion 613 b . the first second rounding portion ( r 2 ) is prepared with a predetermined curvature at the corner of the first inner protrusion 613 b corresponding to the corner between the body 611 a of the bending member 611 and the first outer protrusion 611 b . the first and second rounding portions ( r 1 , r 2 ) increase the attachment area between the bending member 611 and the first supporting member 613 to enhance an adhesive strength between the bending member 611 and the first supporting member 613 . the second supporting member 615 , which is connected with the other side of the bending member 611 , supports the second display area ( da 2 ) of the flexible display panel 100 . the inner lateral side of the second supporting member 615 and the other side of the bending member 611 are overlapped with each other , and are physically connected with each other as one body . also , the second supporting member 615 is physically connected with a second panel rear portion of the flexible display panel 100 overlapped with the second display area ( da 2 ) of the flexible display panel 100 , whereby the second panel rear portion is maintained in the flat state . to this end , the second supporting member 615 may be formed of the same hard material as that of the first supporting member 613 , and the second supporting member 615 may be symmetrical to the first supporting member 613 with respect to the center of the bending portion ( a ). the second supporting member 615 according to one example may include a second base plate 615 a and a second inner protrusion 615 b . the second base plate 615 a is overlapped with the second display area ( da 2 ) of the flexible display panel 100 , wherein the second base plate 615 a supports the second panel rear portion of the flexible display panel 100 . in this case , the second base plate 615 a may be physically connected with the second panel rear portion by the use of adhesive member ( not shown ). an inner lateral side of the second base plate 615 a which directly confronts the second outer protrusion 611 c of the bending member 611 is physically connected with a lateral side of the second outer protrusion 611 c . the second inner protrusion 615 b is prepared at an inner lateral side of the second base plate 615 a , overlapped with the second outer protrusion 611 c of the bending member 611 , and physically connected with the upper surface of the second outer protrusion 611 c and the other side of the body 611 a . the second inner protrusion 615 b , which protrudes toward the bending member 611 , has a predetermined length from the inner lateral side of the second base plate 615 a , and more particularly , an upper portion of an inner short side of the second base plate 615 a , and then the protruding second inner protrusion 615 b is overlapped with the second outer protrusion 611 c of the bending member 611 . in this case , the second inner protrusion 615 b and the second outer protrusion 611 c may have the same length . the first supporting member 615 according to one example may further include third and fourth rounding portions ( r 3 , r 4 ) prepared at corners of the second inner protrusion 615 b connected with the bending member 611 . the third rounding portion ( r 3 ) is prepared with a predetermined curvature at the corner between the second base plate 615 a and the second inner protrusion 615 b . the fourth rounding portion ( r 4 ) is prepared with a predetermined curvature at the corner of the second inner protrusion 615 b corresponding to the corner between the body 611 a of the bending member 611 and the second outer protrusion 611 c . the third and fourth rounding portions ( r 3 , r 4 ) increase the attachment area between the bending member 611 and the second supporting member 615 formed of the different materials to enhance an adhesive strength between the bending member 611 and the second supporting member 615 . additionally , the panel supporting frame 600 according to the first embodiment of the present invention may further include a plurality of first to fourth bosses 613 c , 615 c , 613 d and 615 d . the first boss 613 c protrudes out of the first supporting member 613 and supports one side of the bending member 611 . that is , the plurality of first bosses 613 c , which pass through the first outer protrusion 611 b of the bending member 611 , are provided at fixed intervals in the lower surface of the first inner protrusion 613 b . the plurality of first bosses 613 c protrude out of the lower surface of the first outer protrusion 611 b , wherein each of the plurality of first bosses 613 c may have a cylinder shape . each of the plurality of first bosses 613 c may include a screw hole prepared in the center at its lower end . according as the plurality of first bosses 613 c vertically penetrate through the first outer protrusion 611 b of the bending member 611 , each of the plurality of first bosses 613 c serves as a folding reference point to make the bending member 611 and / or first supporting member 613 folded without twists when the panel supporting frame 610 is folded . also , each of the plurality of first bosses 613 c is connected with the first panel supporting portion 230 of the first rear cover 200 by a coupling member ( not shown ) such as a screw coupled with the screw hole , whereby the inner lateral side of the first supporting member 613 is connected with the first panel supporting portion 230 of the first rear cover 200 . to this end , the first panel supporting portion 230 of the first rear cover 200 is provided with a plurality of first screw through holes 262 overlapped with the plurality of first bosses 613 c . the second boss 615 c protrudes out of the second supporting member 615 and supports the other side of the bending member 611 . that is , the plurality of second bosses 615 c , which pass through the second outer protrusion 611 c of the bending member 611 , are provided at fixed intervals in the lower surface of the second inner protrusion 615 b . the plurality of second bosses 615 c protrude out of the lower surface of the second outer protrusion 611 c , wherein each of the plurality of second bosses 615 c may have a cylinder shape . each of the plurality of second bosses 615 c may include a screw hole prepared in the center at its lower end . according as the plurality of second bosses 615 c vertically penetrate through the second outer protrusion 611 c of the bending member 611 , each of the plurality of second bosses 615 c serves as a folding reference point to make the bending member 611 and / or second supporting member 615 folded without twists when the panel supporting frame 610 is folded . also , each of the plurality of second bosses 615 c is connected with the second panel supporting portion 330 of the second rear cover 300 by a coupling member ( not shown ) such as a screw coupled with the screw hole , whereby the inner lateral side of the second supporting member 615 is connected with the second panel supporting portion 330 of the second rear cover 300 . to this end , the second panel supporting portion 330 of the second rear cover 300 is provided with a plurality of second screw through holes 362 overlapped with the plurality of second bosses 615 c . the plurality of third bosses 613 d protrude from the first supporting member 613 . that is , the plurality of third bosses 613 d are vertically prepared at fixed intervals from the lower portion of the outer lateral side of the first base plate 613 a . each of the plurality of third bosses 613 d may have a cylinder shape . each of the plurality of third bosses 613 d may include a screw hole prepared in the center at its lower end . each of the plurality of third bosses 613 d is connected with the first bottom portion 210 of the first rear cover 200 by a coupling member ( not shown ) such as a screw coupled with the screw hole , whereby the outer lateral side of the first supporting member 613 is connected with the first bottom portion 210 of the first rear cover 200 . to this end , the first bottom portion 210 of the first rear cover 200 is provided with a plurality of third screw through holes 264 overlapped with the plurality of third bosses 613 d . the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d protrude from the second supporting member 615 . that is , the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d are vertically prepared at fixed intervals from the lower surface of the outer lateral side of the second base plate 615 a . each of the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d may have a cylinder shape . each of the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d may include a screw hole prepared in the center at its lower end . each of the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d is connected with the second bottom portion 310 of the second rear cover 300 by a coupling member ( not shown ) such as a screw coupled with the screw hole , whereby the outer lateral side of the second supporting member 615 is connected with the second bottom portion 310 of the second rear cover 300 . to this end , the second bottom portion 310 of the second rear cover 300 is provided with a plurality of fourth screw through holes 364 overlapped with the plurality of fourth bosses 615 d . the bending member 611 and the first and second supporting member 613 and 615 may be formed as one body by an insert injection method or double injection method using both soft and hard materials . accordingly , in case of the panel supporting frame 600 according to the embodiment of the present invention , the first and second supporting members 613 and 615 formed of the hard material are overlapped with and connected with both sides of the bending member 611 formed of the soft material , thereby providing a soft material portion m 1 , a heterogeneous material portion m 2 and a hard material portion m 3 . the soft material portion m 1 is a single material portion defined by the body 611 a of the bending member 611 , wherein the soft material portion m 1 for supporting the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 is bent in accordance with the bending of the bending display area bda . the heterogeneous material portion m 2 corresponds to a combined portion of the soft material and the hard material , that is , an overlapped portion between the bending member 611 and each of the first and second supporting members 613 and 615 . the heterogeneous material portion m 2 minimizes a sense of difference in the touch on the boundary between the soft material and the hard material , and also increases an attachment area between the soft material and the hard material to enhance formability and adhesiveness between the soft material and the hard material . the hard material portion m 3 is a single material portion defined by the base plates 613 a and 615 a of the first and second supporting members 613 and 615 , wherein the hard material portion m 3 secures hardness of the flexible display panel 100 and maintains flatness of the flexible display panel 100 . in case of the panel supporting frame 600 according to one embodiment of the present invention , the attachment area between the bending member 611 and the supporting members 613 and 615 is largely increased owing to the connection portion formed by overlapping and connecting the bending member 611 of the soft material and each of the first and supporting member 613 and 615 of the hard material , whereby it is possible to prevent the bending member 611 and the supporting members 613 and 615 from being separated from each other even in case of the repetitive folding and unfolding . also , the panel supporting frame 600 according to one embodiment of the present invention is physically connected with the lower surface of the flexible display panel 100 so that it is possible to maintain hardness of the flexible display panel 100 , to stably protect the flexible display panel 100 even when the flexible display panel 100 is repetitively folded , to maintain the bending curvature of the bending display area bda when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , and to maintain the flexible display panel 100 in the flat state by the stable supporting of the bending display area bda when the flexible display panel 100 is unfolded . the panel supporting frame 600 according to one embodiment of the present invention is physically connected with and formed as one body with the lower surface of the flexible display panel 100 except the bending display area bda so that it is possible to facilitate a transfer of the flexible display panel 100 , and to improve an assembly between the flexible display panel 100 and the housing . fig1 shows a folding state of the panel supporting frame according to one embodiment of the present invention . referring to fig1 , in case of the panel supporting frame 600 according to one embodiment of the present invention , the first and second supporting members 613 and 615 of the hard material are respectively overlapped with and connected with both sides of the bending member 611 of the soft material , whereby the flexible display panel 100 is bent in an inside bending method through the bending of the bending member 611 . in this case , the inside bending method indicates that the first and second display areas da 1 and da 2 directly confront each other when the flexible display panel 100 is folded . for example , according as the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 are folded , the second supporting member 615 is folded onto the first supporting member 613 by the inside bending of the bending member 611 so that the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 is bent with the predetermined curvature , and the first and second display areas da 1 and da 2 of the flexible display panel 100 directly confront each other . the bosses 613 c and 615 c prepared in the first and second supporting members 613 and 615 make the flexible display panel 100 folded without twists when the flexible display panel 100 is folded . when the flexible display panel 100 is folded , the interval between the adjacent slits prepared in the length compensation pattern 611 d of the bending member 611 is increased in accordance with a tensile force occurring in the lower surface of the bending member 611 so that a length change of the bending member 611 is compensated , and thus the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 is bent in accordance with the smooth curvature without wrinkles . accordingly , the foldable display apparatus according to another embodiment of the present invention may have the same effect as that of the foldable display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention . especially , the panel supporting frame 600 for supporting the flexible display panel 100 is connected with the first and second rear covers 200 and 300 so that it is possible to minimize a sense of difference in the touch on the display areas da 1 and da 2 and the bending display area bda of the flexible display panel 100 , to reinforce hardness of the flexible display panel 100 by the use of panel supporting frame 600 , and also to maintain the flat state of the bending display area bda in the folded flexible display panel . according to the present invention , the flexile display panel is folded and unfolded without bending according as the interval between each of the plurality of rear hinge covers engaged and connected with each other is changed in accordance with the folding or unfolded state of the flexible display panel to improve reliability of the flexible display panel . also , the folded flexible display panel is unfolded in the flat state according to the elastic restoring force of the plurality of elastic axis members so that it is possible to improve a user &# 39 ; s ease for folding and unfolding processes of the flexible display panel . it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the inventions . thus , it is intended that the present invention covers the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents .	6
referring to the drawings in particular , fig1 shows a schematic view of a drive unit 10 with the features of the present invention . the drive unit is used for driving a vertical venetian blind not shown in fig1 . the drive unit 10 has an upper housing part 11 and a lower housing part 12 , wherein in fig1 the upper housing part 11 is shown removed from the lower housing part 12 . as can be inferred from fig1 , a differential gear 13 and another differential gear 14 are mounted at the lower housing part 12 . in particular , the differential gear is a planet gear 13 and the other differential gear is a differential gear 14 . the planet gear 13 and the differential gear 14 have a shared actuating element 15 , namely a chain wheel 15 . in the exemplary embodiment shown , the chain wheel 15 is connected to a central wheel ( not shown in fig1 ) of the planet gear 13 in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . the planet gear 13 has a first driven element 17 and a second driven element 16 . the first driven element 17 in this embodiment is an outer ring 17 on the outer circumference of the planet gear 13 , namely on the planet carrier , and the second driven element 16 is a bevel gear 16 . as can be further inferred from fig1 , a toothed wheel 18 meshes with the outer ring 17 . the toothed wheel 18 is used as the other driving element for the differential gear 14 . for this purpose , the toothed wheel 18 is connected to a bevel gear ( not shown in the figure ) of the differential gear 14 in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . moreover , the toothed wheel 18 is connected by means of a leg spring 19 to a bushing 20 of the differential gear 14 , as is explained in detail below . the bushing 20 is used as the housing of the differential gear 14 . a spline shaft 21 extends through the differential gear 14 and the toothed wheel 18 and is connected to a bevel gear ( not shown fig1 ) of the differential gear 14 as the other first driven element . the bushing 20 has a spiral 22 on its outer circumference as the other second driven element of the differential gear 14 . meshing with the spiral 22 , a stop element 24 is pivotably arranged about an axle 23 . the stop element 24 has a toothed ring section 25 . fig2 shows a view of the drive unit 10 with the upper housing part removed . as can be clearly inferred from fig2 , the toothed ring section 25 has six teeth , so that six revolutions of the bushing 20 are possible . in the respective end positions , a front surface of the spiral 22 in each case stops at the stop element 24 in the known manner . fig3 shows a view similar to fig2 , whereby the bushing 20 is removed from the differential gear 14 . as can be inferred from fig3 , the leg spring 19 has a leg 26 , which meshes with the bushing 20 in the mounted state . moreover , it can be recognized in fig3 that the toothed wheel 18 is connected by means of a sleeve 27 to a bevel gear 28 of the differential gear 14 in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . the leg spring 19 is arranged on the sleeve 27 , and a leg of the leg spring turned away from the leg 26 is connected to the toothed wheel 18 in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . as can be further inferred from fig3 , the differential gear has , besides the bevel gear 28 , two other bevel gears 29 , 30 , which are each mounted rotatably at the bushing 20 by means of axles 31 . each of the bevel gears 29 , 30 meshes on one side with the bevel gear 28 and at the end turned away from same with another bevel gear 32 , which forms the other first driven element of the differential gear 14 . the bevel gear 32 is connected to the spline shaft 21 in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . fig4 shows the differential gear 14 in a lateral view , as viewed from the toothed wheel 18 . as can be inferred from fig4 , the sleeve 27 has a mount 33 for a leg at the end of the leg spring 19 turned away from the leg 26 . another mount 34 is arranged at the bushing 20 and meshes with the leg 26 . the bushing 20 has , moreover , a stop 35 , which , in the exemplary embodiment shown , is a thickened section with rectangular cross section , in the middle of which the mount 34 is formed as a blind hole . moreover , as can be inferred from fig4 , a stop 36 is arranged at the bevel gear 28 , which interacts with the stop 35 . in the exemplary embodiment shown , the leg spring 19 is pretensioned in such a way that the stops 35 , 36 are held against one another in the position shown . fig5 and fig6 each show a view similar to fig4 , wherein a leg 37 of the leg spring 19 arranged in the mount 33 is shown , moreover , in fig6 . the mode of operation of the drive unit 10 is explained in detail below on the basis of fig1 through 6 . for closing a completely open vertical venetian blind , the chain wheel 15 is actuated by means of a ball chain not shown in the figures . in the completely open state of the vertical venetian blind , the differential gear 14 is in the state shown in fig6 , in which the stop element 24 stops at a front end of the spiral 22 and the stop 36 in fig6 comes into contact with the stop 35 from above . here the leg spring 19 is tensioned by one revolution . since the displacing motion of the vertical slats is tighter than the rotation motion thereof , the toothed wheel 18 is now first driven via the outer ring 17 when the chain wheel 15 is actuated . at first the stop 36 is brought into the position under the stop 35 shown in fig5 , while the leg spring 19 is released . the vertical slats are then brought into a closed position by means of driving the spline shaft 21 via the bevel gears 28 , 29 , 30 , 32 from an approximately 30 ° open position with stationary bushing 20 . with further actuation of the chain wheel 15 , the bushing 20 is rotated over the stop 36 and the stop 35 to the extent that the stop element 24 is located in its opposite stop positions compared to fig5 and 6 and the spiral 22 stops at its other front end at the stop element 24 . the vertical slats are then rotated into their closed , final position . with another actuation of the chain wheel 15 , the bevel gear 16 is driven because of the now blocked toothed wheel 18 and thus also because of the blocked toothed wheel 17 . the bevel gear 16 meshes with a driving gear for a pull cord for displacing the vertical slats . with a further actuation of the chain wheel 15 , the vertical slats are then displaced into their completely closed , final position . if now the vertical slats shall be rotated out of the extended position for the complete closing in the opposite direction because of an unfavorable angle of incidence , then the chain wheel 15 is actuated in the opposite direction . the vertical slats are rotated here in the opposite direction by the sleeve 20 being rotated by means of actuating the toothed wheel 18 via the outer ring 17 by means of the spring force of the leg spring 19 to the extent that the stop element 24 has been rotated from the position shown in fig4 into the position shown in fig5 . for opening the vertical venetian blind , the chain wheel 15 can be further actuated in the same direction . because the spiral 22 stops at the stop element 24 and thus prevents a further rotation of the bushing 20 , the bevel gear 28 can be rotated one revolution further against the bushing 20 while tensioning the leg spring 19 until the stop 36 comes to lie at the stop 35 as shown in fig6 from above . because the bevel gear 28 meshes with the bevel gears 29 , 30 , the rotary motion of the bevel gear 28 is converted via the bevel gears 29 , 30 to the bevel gear 32 into a rotary motion of same in the opposite direction . the vertical slats are rotated by means of the spline shaft 21 for an opening into an approximately 30 ° opened position . a further actuation of the chain wheel 15 then leads to a displacing of the vertical slats via the bevel gear 16 for opening the vertical venetian blind because of the differential gear 14 , which is now blocked in this position . because of the approximately 30 ° opened position of the vertical slats , they cannot get hooked up when brought together into a pack . fig7 shows a schematic view of a drive unit 38 as another exemplary embodiment of the present invention . the drive unit 38 essentially corresponds to the drive unit 10 . identical elements have the same reference numbers . unlike the drive unit 10 , the drive unit 38 has another differential gear 39 . in the differential gear shown , the other differential gear is likewise a differential gear 39 . the other differential gear 39 essentially corresponds to the other differential gear 14 . however , the other differential gear 39 does not have a leg spring 19 . for better overall view , fig7 does not show the housing of the other differential gear 39 . as can be inferred from fig7 , the other differential gear 39 has a bevel gear 40 instead of the bevel gear 32 . unlike the bevel gear 32 , a part of the outer circumference of the bevel gear 40 is embodied as a spring section 41 . the spring section 41 protrudes a little bit over the outer circumference of the remaining circumference of the bevel gear 40 . in particular , the spring section 41 is pretensioned radially in the outward direction . in fig7 , the spring section 41 has a front surface 42 at the lower end . fig8 shows a perspective view of the differential gear 39 . the differential gear 39 has a bushing 43 , similar to the bushing 20 , as a housing . the bushing 43 likewise has a spiral 44 similar to the spiral 22 as the other second driven element . unlike in the spiral 22 , the spiral 44 has , however , more than one turn . in particular , a second turn section 45 , which is arranged on a spring section 46 , is connected to the first turn of the spiral 44 . in the normal state , the spring section 46 is embodied as a continuation of the circumference of the bushing 43 in the area of the spiral 44 . on its side turned away from the second turn section 45 , the spring section 46 has a web 47 . fig9 shows an enlarged partial view of the front side of the bushing 43 . as can be inferred from fig9 , a mount , which is turned towards the web 47 and is assigned to the spiral 44 , for the front surface 42 of the spring section 41 , is arranged at the bushing 43 . in the state shown , the front surface 42 actively meshes with the mount 48 , so that a coupled state of the snap - in coupling is produced . in particular , the bevel gear 40 and the bushing 43 and thus the spiral 44 are connected by means of the front surface 42 and the mount 48 to one another in a manner adapted to rotate in unison . fig1 shows a perspective rear view of the differential gear 39 similar to the view of fig4 . fig1 shows a top view of the drive unit 38 in a coupled state and fig1 shows a top view of the drive unit 38 in a released state of the coupling . the mode of operation of the drive unit 38 is explained in detail below on the basis of fig7 through 12 . the mode of operation essentially corresponds to that of the drive unit 10 . a different mode of operation arises when turning the vertical slats for complete closing in the opposite direction in the extended position . in the completely closed position reached during the extension , the spring section 41 actively meshes with the mount 48 , as shown in fig9 . at the same time , the stop 36 , as shown in fig1 , stops at the stop 35 from below , and a front end of the spiral 44 abuts against the stop element 24 , as shown in fig1 . if because of an unfavorable angle of incidence the vertical slat shall now be turned in a position extended in the opposite direction for the complete closing , then the chain wheel 15 is actuated in the opposite direction . here , the vertical slats are rotated in the opposite direction by the sleeve 43 being rotated by means of actuating the toothed wheel 18 via the outer ring 17 by the active meshing of the spring section 41 and of the mount 48 to the extent that the stop element 24 has been rotated from the position shown in fig1 into the position shown in fig1 . in this state , the vertical slats are completely closed in the opposite direction . for opening the vertical venetian blind , the chain wheel 15 can now be further actuated in the same direction as for rotating . because the stop 24 now presses the spring section 46 in fig9 radially in the inward direction via the second turn section 45 , the spring section 41 is pressed via the web 47 radially inwardly to the extent that the front surface 42 no longer meshes with the mount 48 . with a further actuation of the chain wheel 15 , the bushing 43 cannot be further rotated counterclockwise in fig8 and 9 because of the stopping of the spiral 44 at the stop element 24 . however , because the spring section 41 no longer meshes with the mount 48 in this state , the toothed wheel 18 can be further rotated by one revolution until it lies on the stop 35 from above in fig1 after one clockwise rotation of the stop 36 . however , because the bevel gear 28 meshes with the bevel gears 29 and 30 , the rotary motion of the bevel gear 28 in fig7 in the counterclockwise direction is converted into a clockwise rotary motion of the bevel gear 40 . in this case , the spring section 41 slides along on the inner circumference surface of the bushing 43 under the spiral 44 . with this clockwise rotation of the bevel gear 40 in fig7 and 8 , the vertical slats are rotated by means of the spline shaft 21 for opening into an approximately 30 ° opened position . because of the differential gear 39 being blocked in this position , a further actuation of the chain wheel 15 then leads to a displacing of the vertical slats by means of the bevel gear 16 for opening the vertical venetian blind . because of the approximately 30 ° opened position of the vertical slats , they cannot get hooked up when being brought together into a pack . the mode of operation of the drive unit 38 is thus similar to that of the drive unit 10 , and the opening by approximately 30 ° before bringing together into a pack does not take place against the spring 19 , but rather essentially without additional forces after the front surface is no longer meshing with the mount 48 . while specific embodiments of the invention have been shown and described in detail to illustrate the application of the principles of the invention , it will be understood that the invention may be embodied otherwise without departing from such principles .	4
the term “ alkyl ” used herein refers to a branched or unbranched saturated hydrocarbon group of 1 to 24 carbon atoms , such as methyl , ethyl , n - propyl , isopropyl , n - butyl , isobutyl , t - butyl , octyl , decyl , tetradecyl , hexadecyl , eicosyl , tetracosyl and the like . preferred alkyl groups herein contain 1 to 12 carbon atoms . the term “ lower alkyl ” intends an alkyl group of one to six carbon atoms , preferably one to four carbon atoms . the term “ cycloalkyl ” intends a cyclic alkyl group , typically of 3 to 6 carbon atoms , more preferably 4 to 5 carbon atoms . the term “ cyclooxyalkyl ” intends a cyclic alkyl group containing a single ether linkage , again , typically containing 3 to 6 carbon atoms , more preferably 4 to 5 carbon atoms . the term “ aryl ” as used herein refers to a monocyclic aromatic species of 5 to 7 carbon atoms , and is typically phenyl . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . the aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the term “ lower flouroalkyl ” intends an alkyl group of one to six carbon atoms , preferably one to four carbon atoms . the term “ lower alkoxy ” intends an alkoxy group with one to six carbon atoms , preferably one to four carbon atoms . the term “ carboxy aryl ” as used herein refers to a carboxy group attached to the aryl group . the term “ halo ” or “ halogen ” refers to fluoro , chloro , bromo or iodo , and usually relates to halo substitution for a hydrogen atom in an organic compound . the term “ optional ” or “ optionally ” means that the subsequently described event or circumstance may or may not occur , and that the description includes instances where said event or circumstance occurs and instances where it does not . the term “ heteroaryl ” as used herein refers to monocyclic aromatic species of three to seven carbon atoms , and is preferably one to six carbon atoms , and is more preferably one to five carbon atoms , and is typically phenyl . in particular , the heteroaryl comprises , for example , oxazole , thiazole , isoxazole , where these heteroaryls have nitrogen , oxygen , or sulfur atoms in the monocyclic ring . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . the aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the term “ carboxy - heteroaryl ” as used herein refers to a carboxy group attached to a heteroaryl group . the term “ fused aryl ” as used herein refers to bicyclic aromatic species of three to seven carbon atoms , and is typically phenyl . in particular , the fused aryl may comprise of naphthyl , benzothienyl , or benzofuryl . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . the aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the term “ carboxy - fused aryl ” as used herein refers to a carboxy group attached to a fused - aryl group . the term “ biaryl ” as used herein refers to two monocyclic aromatic species of four to seven carbon atoms , and is typically different configurations of a combination of a phenyl and a heteroaryl . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . the aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the term “ carboxy - biaryl ” as used herein refers to a biaryl attached to a carboxy group . the terms “ ether - linked aryls ” and “ ether - linked heteroaryls ” as used herein refer to two aryls / heteroaryls as defined above that are linked by an ether group . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . the aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the terms “ amine - linked aryls ” and “ amine - linked heteroaryls ” as used herein refer to two aryls / heteroaryls as defined above that are linked by an amine group . the terms aminoalkoxyl arene hybrids and peptidyl hybrids as used herein are referred to the groups exemplified in table 1 . optionally , these groups are substituted with one to five , more preferably one to three , lower alkyl , lower flouroalkyl , lower alkoxy , halo , nitro , amino , amide , carboxy , thioether , sulfide , sulfoxide , sulfamino , and / or sulfamide substituents . aryl group may also comprise of di -, tri -, hexa -, penta - substituted phenyl with all positional ( ortho , meta , para ) variations . the term “ effective amount ” as used herein means a nontoxic but sufficient amount of a compound to provide the desired effect . the exact amount required will vary from patient to patient , depending on the species , age , and general condition of the patient , the severity of the condition being treated , and the particular compound and its mode of administration . thus , it is not possible to specify an exact “ effective amount .” however , an appropriate effective amount may be determined by one of ordinary skill in the art using only routine experimentation . the term “ pharmaceutically acceptable ” as used herein means a material which is not biologically or otherwise undesirable , i . e ., the material may be administered to a patient along with the selected compound without causing any undesirable biological effects or interacting in a deleterious manner with any of the other components of the pharmaceutical composition in which it is contained . the present invention comprises the design , synthesis and development of a new class of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of hormone - responsive disorders . in the new class of chemotherapeutic agents , two components — a message subunit or pharmacophore , present in the nonsteroidal antagonists ( e . g ., antiandrogens , antiestrogens ) and the address subunit found in the steroidal agonists ( e . g ., androgens , estrogens )— are combined into a single composite entity . in particular , specific compounds in this new class of chemotherapeutic agents target the estrogen and / or the androgen receptors . the general formula for the agents of the invention was determined based on the discovery that the interaction between androgen / estrogen with the receptor involves a two step process . there is an initial association of the hormone ( address component ) with a specific part of the receptor , called the hormone binding domain , followed by the induction of a conformational change in the receptor ( message component ) that generates the observed biological response . accordingly , the present invention incorporates the “ address - message ” concept to generate , for example , prostate cancer tissue affinity , selectivity , and efficacy , and employs transition metal catalysts / reagents to prepare the novel therapeutic compounds . as an embodiment , the present invention uses modified palladium catalysts for carbon - carbon ( stille , suzuki reactions ) and carbon - nitrogen / oxygen ( buchwald , hartwig ) coupling reactions . as another embodiment of the present invention , the use of 1d / 2d - nmr ( nuclear magnetic resonance ) and the molecular modeling in the evaluation of the conformational analysis of the target compounds provides the capability for biological and structural data . the novel therapeutic compounds constitute a structurally unique class of steroidal derivatives , e . g ., derivatives of , for example , 17α -( substituted ) phenylvinyl - 17β - estradiols as estrogens and antiestrogens , and corresponding ( nor ) testosterones and dihydro - derivatives . in particular , identification of the most potent and selective antagonists for prophylaxis and treatment provides for a more effective treatment of hormone - responsive disorders and thereby prolong the disease - free interval . the present invention provides for a more potent and effective agent which increases the initial response coupled with a slower progression to hormone independence . additionally , the therapeutic compound of the present invention targets specifically and more selectively thereby reducing the incidence and / or severity of the side effects of anti - estrogen or anti - androgen therapy . the following examples are presented to illustrate the advantages of the present invention and to assist one of ordinary skill in making and using the same . these examples are not intended in any way otherwise to limit the scope of the disclosure . preferred antiestrogens / antiandrogens for the prevention or treatment of its corresponding hormone - related disorder acting to inhibit estrogen / androgen action may be prepared accordingly as follows : reagents and solvents were obtained from commercial sources ( aldrich and sigma ) and were used without further purification . wang resins and carboxylated polystyrene resins were obtained from novabiochem . the loading capacities of the resins , 0 . 75 mmol g − 1 for the wang resin and 2 . 47 mmol g − 1 for the polystyrene resin , were determined by the manufacturer . a specially designed flask which had a glass frit , through which the reaction mixture could be filtered by applying pressure , was used for the solid phase synthesis . purifications for the intermediates were done by rinsing resins three times with the following solvents : ch 2 cl 2 , thf , dmf , meoh , ch 2 cl 2 . the cleaved products were purified on a silica gel column chromatography using the appropriate solvents and were characterized by melting point , nmr , ir and electrical analysis . melting points were determined in open capillary on an electrothermal melting point apparatus and were uncorrected . ir spectra were recorded on a perkin - elmer model 1600 ft - ir spectrometer . 1 h and 13 c nmr spectra were obtained with a varian xl - 300 nmr spectrometer at 300 mhz in cdcl 3 , acetone - d 6 , or dmso - d 6 as a solvent . elemental analyses were performed by atlantic microlab , inc . ( norcross , ga .). as on - resin reaction monitoring methods , color tests and ft - ir methods were used . bomoscresol green ( 0 . 5 % in ethanol , ph = 8 ) was used to assay for free carboxylic acids . 18 the color of the stock solution was dark blue and changed to yellow in the presence of free carboxy groups . antimony ( iii ) chloride solution ( 25 % in ccl 4 ) was also used to determine whether the steroid ( 17α - ethynyl estradiol ) was coupled to the resin and a positive test result for the presence of estradiol was indicated by the color purple ( carr , 1926 ; blatz , 1972 ; jork , 1990 ). in addition , a spectro - scopic method ( ft - ir ) was facilitated to detect chromophore change by reaction . ( method a ). the wang resins ( 1 g , 0 . 75 mmol ) were swelled in the ch 2 cl 2 overnight and rinsed twice with thf , ch 3 oh , ch 2 cl 2 and acetone . acetone ( 5 ml ) was added to the swelled resins . to the slurry was added 1 ml of jones reagent ( bowden , 1946 ) in a dropwise manner . the mixture was allowed to stand at room temperature for 24 h . the resin mixture was rinsed twice with water - acetone ( 1 : 1 ), ch 3 oh , dmf , dmso and ch 2 cl 2 and dried in vacuo . the loading capacity after the carboxylation reaction was 0 . 4 – 0 . 6 mmol g − 1 , which was determined with the coupling of 17α - ethynyl estradiol to the resin . the aliquot of the resins was characterized by ft - ir . ft - ir ( kbr ) v : 3000 – 3500 ( oh , broad ), 1690 ( c ═ o , broad ), 1603 , 1492 , 1452 ( aromatic ring ), 1279 ( c — o ). ( method b ). the carboxylation of a polystyrene resin was accomplished using the method described by farrall et al . ( farrall , 1976 ). ft - ir ( kbr ) v : 3420 ( oh , broad ), 1630 ( c ═ o , broad ), 1200 – 1400 ( c — o , broad ). loading capacity : 1 . 5 – 1 . 9 mmol g − 1 . the carboxylated wang resin ( 2 . 3 g ) or polystyrene resin ( 2 . 5 g ) was placed in the reactor equipped with a magnetic stirrer . the resin was swelled in the ch 2 cl 2 for 5 h and washed sequentially with thf , dmf , ch 3 oh , thf and ch 2 cl 2 . to the resin was added 0 . 23 g ( 1 . 1 mmol ) of dicyclohexylcarbodiimide ( ddc ) and 5 ml of ch 2 cl 2 and the mixture was mildly stirred for 10 min . to the slurry was added 0 . 75 g ( 2 . 6 mmol ) of 17α - ethynyl estradiol dissolved in 10 ml of ch 2 cl 2 - dmf ( 9 : 1 ) solvent and catalytic amount of 4 - dimethylaminopyridine ( dmap ). the reaction mixture was stirred for 5 min and then allowed to stand at room temperature for 24 h . the resin was washed three times with ch 2 cl 2 ch 3 oh , ipa ( 60 ° c . ), thf and dmf ( 60 ° c .) ( morales , 1998 ). the rinsed resin was dried under vacuum for 5 h . the actual loading of the resin was determined by quantitative measurement of the material by cleavage from known weight of resin using 5 n - naoh in ch 3 oh - dioxane ( 1 : 3 ). the resin - bound steroids were characterized by ft - ir and the cleaved compounds by 1 h and 13 c nmr before proceeding to the next step . the loading capacity of each resin was shown in method a and b ; ft - ir ( kbr ) v ; 3437 ( 17β — oh ), 3301 ( 17α - c ≡ c - h ), 1735 ( c ═ o ), 1607 , 1493 , 1452 ( aromatic ring ), 1216 ( c — o ). ( method a ). the 17α - ethynyl estradiol coupled to the resin ( 0 . 49 g , 0 . 57 mmol g − 1 ) was placed in a dry 25 ml reaction flask equipped with a reflux condenser and a magnetic stirrer and was swelled in thf for 1 h . to the slurry in the dry thf were treated triethylborane ( 0 . 7 ml ) and tributyltin hydride ( 1 ml ) ( nozaki , 1989 ). the mixture was allowed to stand at 60 – 70 ° c . for 48 h under a nitrogen atmosphere . the reaction mixture was washed three times each with ch 2 cl 2 , ch 3 oh , dmf , ch 2 cl 2 and ethyl acetate and the resultant resin was dried in vacuo . an aliquot of the resins was cleaved with 5 n naoh in ch 3 oh — ch 2 cl 2 ( 1 : 2 ) to afford a mixture of e - and z - isomers . the mixture was separated by chromatography on the silica gel to give a 23 % ( 0 . 13 mmol g − 1 ) yield of products , consisting of 21 % ( 0 . 12 mmol g − 1 ) of the e - isomer and 2 % ( 0 . 01 mmol g − 1 ) of the z - isomer . r f ( z - isomer = 0 . 58 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); rf ( e - isomer )= 0 . 44 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); amorphous ; 1 h nmr ( cdcl 3 , 300 mhz , δ ), 0 . 88 ( s , 3h , c 18 - methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope and tributyl - stannyl - h ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 6 . 06 ( d , 1h , j = 19 . 4 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 6 . 22 ( d , 1h , j = 19 . 4 hz , c 20 vinyl - h ), 6 . 79 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 4 hz , c 4 — h ), 6 . 84 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 6 , 8 . 4 hz , c 2 — h ), 7 . 28 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 8 hz , c 1 — h ); 13 c nmr ( cdcl 3 ), 9 . 6 ( c 22 , 4c ), 13 . 7 ( c 24 , 4c ), 14 . 2 ( c 18 ), 23 . 4 ( c 15 ), 26 . 4 ( c 11 ), 27 . 3 ( c 25 , 4c ), 27 . 4 ( c 7 ), 29 . 2 ( c 23 , 4c ), 29 . 6 ( c 6 ), 32 . 4 ( c 12 ), 35 . 9 ( c 16 ), 39 . 4 ( c 8 ), 43 . 8 ( c 9 ), 46 . 7 ( c 13 ), 49 . 0 ( c 14 ), 85 . 6 ( c 17 ), 112 . 6 ( c 2 ), 115 . 2 ( c 4 ), 124 . 6 ( c 21 ), 126 . 5 ( c 1 ), 132 . 7 ( c 10 ), 138 . 3 ( c 5 ), 152 . 4 ( c 20 ), 153 . 3 ( c 3 ), ft - ir ( kbr ) v : 3445 ( 17β - oh , broad , 1719 ( c ═ o ), 1653 ( c ═ c ), 1607 , 1493 , 1451 ( aromatic ring ), 1217 ( c — o ). ( method b ). the 17α - ethynyl estradiol ( 3 g , 10 mmol ) was dissolved in thf and treated with triethylborane ( 2 ml , 17 mmol ) and tributyltin hydride ( 3 g , 11 mmol ). the mixture was stirred with a magnetic stirrer at 60 ° c . for 16 h . the crude mixture ( 7 . 73 g ) was evaporated to dryness , redissolved in the ch 2 cl 2 , and transferred to the swelled resin ( 5 g ) in ch 2 cl 2 in the presence of dcc . a catalytic amount of dmap was added to the mixture , which was allowed to stand for 24 h . the resultant functionalized resin was treated as previously described . the total loading for both e - and z - isomers was 0 . 59 mmol g − 1 with 0 . 56 mmol g − 1 of e - isomer and 0 . 03 mmol g − 1 of z - isomer , however , by the dry weight difference between pre - and post - reaction , the loading for both e - and z - isomers was 1 . 55 mmol g − 1 . the stille reaction was used to couple the anchored e - and z - stannylvinyl estradiol to aryl halides . the resin was added to the reaction flask , swelled in the ch 2 cl 2 , subsequently treated with 10 ml of anhydrous toulene . to the resultant slurry was added a 3 – 4 fold excess of the functionalized aryl halide , 1 – 2 crystals of 3 . 5 - di - t - butyl - 4 - hydroxytoulene ( bht ), and pd ( pph 3 ) 4 ( bowden , 1946 ; farrall , 1976 ). the reaction was allowed to proceed at 90 – 100 ° c . for 24 h . after cooling , the resin was washed as previously described , dried in vacuo and weighed . the resin was swelled in ch 2 cl 2 ( 10 ml ) containing 3 ml of 5 n - naoh in ch 3 oh - dioxane ( 1 : 3 ) and stirred for 1 h . this cleavage step was repeated three times . most of the product was collected from the first attempt , a small amount by second hydrolysis , and almost none from the third trial . the fractions were combined , evaporated to dryness , and partitioned between ethyl acetate and water . acetic acid ( 1 ml , 5 %) was added . the organic phase was washed with 10 % aqueous nahco 3 to remove the residual acetic acid , dried over mgso 4 , filtered and evaporated to dryness . the crude product was purified by silica gel column chromatography or by recrystallization from the appropriate solvent . 17α - 20e - 21 -( 2 - trifluoromethylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 2 - trifluoromethylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 4a ). yield = 38 %; r t = 0 . 19 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); mp 224 – 225 ° c . ; 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ) 1 . 02 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 98 ( s , 1h , 17p hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 53 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 3 hz , c 4 — h ), 6 . 58 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 6 , 8 . 5 hz , c 2 — h ), 6 . 64 ( d , 1h , j = 15 . 7 hz , c 20 vinyl - h ), 7 . 0 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 5 , 15 . 8 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 7 . 07 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 7 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 42 ( t , 1h , j = 7 . 8 hz , c 26 — h ), 7 . 60 ( t , 1h , j = 7 . 3 hz , c 25 — h ), 7 . 69 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 8 hz , c 27 — h ), 7 . 81 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , c 24 — h ), 7 . 98 ( s , c 3 hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 8 ) 14 . 7 ( c 18 ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ) 27 . 2 ( c 11 ), 28 . 3 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 4 ( c 12 ), 37 . 5 ( c 16 ), 40 . 7 ( c 8 ); 44 . 6 ( c 9 ), 48 . 4 ( c 13 ), 50 . 0 ( c 14 ), 84 . 3 ( c 17 ), 113 . 5 ( c 2 ), 115 . 9 ( c 4 ), 123 . 4 ( c 21 ), 125 . 6 ( q , j = 273 . 2 hz , c 28 : cf 3 ), 126 . 4 ( q , j = 5 . 8 hz , c 24 ), 127 . 0 ( c 1 ), 127 . 4 ( q , j = 29 . 4 hz , c 23 ), 127 . 8 ( c 26 ), 128 . 6 ( c 27 ), 132 . 0 ( c 25 ), 133 . 2 ( c 10 ), 137 . 9 ( c 22 ), 139 . 1 ( c 5 ), 142 . 4 ( c 20 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ); anal . calcd for c 27 h 29 o 2 f 3 : c , 73 . 30 ; h , 6 . 56 . found : c , 73 . 04 ; h , 6 . 68 . 17α - 20e - 21 -( 3 - trifluoromethylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 3 - trifluoro methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 5a ). yield = 33 %; r f ( e - isomer )= 0 . 19 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); mp 244 – 246 ° c . ; 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ), 1 . 01 ( s , 3h , c 18 - methyl ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 98 ( s , 1h , 17β hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 53 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 6 hz , c 4 — h ), 6 . 58 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 6 , 8 . 3 hz , c 2 — h ), 6 . 74 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 6 . 84 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 20 vinyl - h ), 7 . 06 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 54 – 7 . 56 ( m , 2h , c 25 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 75 – 7 . 79 ( m , 2h , c 23 , c 26 — h ), 7 . 93 ( s , c 3 - hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , δ ), 14 . 7 ( c 18 ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ), 27 . 3 ( c 11 ), 28 . 3 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 5 ( c 12 ), 37 . 5 ( c 16 ), 40 . 7 ( c 8 ), 44 . 6 ( c 9 ), 48 . 4 ( c 13 ), 50 . 1 ( c 14 ), 84 . 2 ( c 17 ), 113 . 5 ( c 2 ), 115 . 9 ( c 4 ), 123 . 6 ( q , j = 5 . 6 hz , c 25 ), 124 . 1 ( q , j = 3 . 7 hz , c 23 ), 125 . 4 ( q , j = 271 hz , c 28 : cf 3 ), 126 . 0 ( c 26 ), 127 . 0 ( c 1 ), 130 . 2 ( c 21 ), 130 . 7 ( c 27 ), 131 . 2 ( q , j = 32 hz , c 24 ), 132 . 0 ( c 10 ), 138 . 4 ( c 5 ), 139 . 7 ( c 20 ), 139 . 9 ( c 22 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ); anal . calcd for c 27 h 29 o 2 f 3 : c , 73 . 30 ; h , 6 . 56 . found : c , 73 . 42 ; h , 6 . 68 . 17α - 20e - 21 -( 4 - trifluoromethylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 4 - trifluoro methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 6a ). yield = 49 %; r f = 0 . 15 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); mp 215 – 217 ° c . ; 1 h nmr ( acetone - d 6 , 300 mhz , 8 ), 1 . 02 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 90 ( s , 1h , 17β hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 53 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 6 hz , c 4 — h ), 6 . 58 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 6 , 8 . 4 hz , c 2 — h ), 6 . 73 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 6 . 85 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 20 vinyl - h , 7 . 07 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 64 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 7 hz , c 23 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 70 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 6 hz , c 24 , c 26 — h ), 8 . 0 ( s , c 3 - hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ) 14 . 7 ( c 18 ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ), 27 . 3 ( c 11 ), 28 . 3 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 5 ( cl 2 ), 37 . 6 ( c 16 ), 40 . 7 ( c 8 ), 44 . 6 ( c 9 ), 48 . 5 ( c 13 ), 50 . 2 ( cl 4 ), 84 . 2 ( c 17 ), 113 . 5 ( c 2 ), 115 . 9 ( c 4 ), 125 . 4 ( q , j = 270 . 6 hz , c 28 : cf 3 ), 126 . 0 ( c 21 ), 126 . 2 ( q , j = 3 . 5 hz , c 26 ), 126 . 2 ( q , j = 3 . 5 hz , c 24 ), 127 . 0 ( c 1 ), 127 . 6 ( c 23 , c 27 ), 128 . 9 ( q , j = 32 hz , c 25 ), 132 . 0 ( c 10 ), 138 . 4 ( c 5 ), 140 . 6 ( c 20 ), 142 . 7 ( c 22 ), 155 . 9 ( c3 ); anal . calcd for c 27 h 29 o 2 f 3 : c , 73 . 30 ; h , 6 . 56 . found : c , 73 . 36 ; h , 6 . 79 . 17α - 20z - 21 -( 4 - trifluoromethylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17α - diol ( 17α - z -( 4 - trifluoro methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 6b ). yield = 17 %; r f = 0 . 29 ( hexane - ethyl acetate , 4 : 1 ); 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ) 0 . 97 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 89 ( s , 1h , 17p hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 12 ( d , 1h , j = 12 . 9 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 6 . 48 – 6 . 62 ( m , 3h , c 2 , c 4 , c 20 vinyl - h ), 7 . 11 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 1 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 59 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 4 hz , c 23 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 80 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 4 hz , c 24 , c 26 — h ), 7 . 95 ( s , c 3 hydroxy - h ). 17α - 20e - 21 -( 2 - methylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 2 - methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 7a ). yield = 38 %; r t = 0 . 18 ( hexane - acetone , 4 : 1 ); mp 199 – 200 ° c . ; 1 h nmr ( acetone - d 6 , 300 mhz , δ ), 1 . 01 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( steroid envelope ), 2 . 34 ( s , 3h , c 28 methyl - h ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 84 ( s , 1h , 17β hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 44 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 21 vinyl - h ), 6 . 52 – 6 . 63 ( m , 2h , c 2 , c 4 — h ), 6 . 83 ( d , 1h , j = 16 hz , c 20 vinyl - h ), 7 . 07 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 10 – 7 . 15 ( m , 3h , c 24 , c 25 , c 26 — h ), 7 . 48 ( d , 1h , j = 6 . 8 hz , c 27 — h ), 7 . 97 ( s , c 3 hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , δ ) 14 . 7 ( c 18 ), 19 . 9 ( c 28 , methyl ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ), 27 . 3 ( c 11 ), 28 . 3 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 5 ( c 12 ), 37 . 5 ( c 16 ), 40 . 7 ( c 8 ), 44 . 7 ( cg ), 48 . 2 ( c 13 ), 50 . 1 ( c 14 ), 84 . 2 ( c 17 ), 113 . 5 ( c 2 ), 115 . 9 ( c 4 ), 125 . 4 ( c 26 ), 126 . 5 ( c 25 ), 126 . 9 ( c 24 ), 127 . 0 ( c 1 ), 127 . 7 ( c 21 ), 130 . 8 ( c 27 ), 132 . 0 ( c 10 ), 135 . 9 ( c 20 ), 137 . 9 ( c 22 ), 138 . 4 ( c 5 ), 138 . 8 ( c 23 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ); anal . calcd for c 27 h 32 o 2 : c , 83 . 51 ; h , 8 . 25 . found : c , 83 . 79 ; h , 8 . 65 . 17α - 20e - 21 -( 3 - methylphenyl )- 19 - nonpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 3 - methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 8a ). yield = 75 %; r t = 0 . 17 ( hexane - acetone , 4 : 1 ); mp 204 – 205 ° c . ; 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ), 1 . 00 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 31 ( s , 3h , c 28 methyl - h ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 74 ( s , 1h , 17β hydroxyl - h ), 6 . 52 – 6 . 63 ( m , 4h , c 4 , c 2 , c 21 vinyl , c 20 vinyl - h ), 7 . 03 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 3 hz , c 25 — h )., 7 . 07 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 7 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 16 – 7 . 31 ( m , 3h , j = 7 . 4 hz , c 23 , c 26 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 93 ( s , 1h , c 3 hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ) 14 . 8 ( c 18 ), 21 . 4 ( c 28 ; methyl ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ), 27 . 3 ( c 11 ), 28 . 4 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 5 ( c 12 ), 37 . 4 ( c 16 ), 40 . 8 ( c 8 ), 44 . 7 ( cg ), 48 . 3 ( c 13 ), 50 . 2 ( c 14 ), 84 . 2 ( c 17 ), 113 . 6 ( c 2 ), 116 . 0 ( c 4 ), 124 . 4 ( c 27 ), 127 . 0 ( cl ), 127 . 7 ( c 25 ), 127 . 8 ( c 26 ), 128 . 5 ( c 21 ), 129 . 2 ( c 23 ), 132 . 2 ( c 10 ), 137 . 0 ( c 20 ), 138 . 4 ( c 5 ), 138 . 7 ( c 22 , c 24 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ); anal . calcd for c 27 h 32 o 2 : c , 83 . 51 ; h , 8 . 25 . found : c , 83 . 23 ; h , 8 . 42 . 17α - 20z - 21 -( 3 - methylphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - z -( 3 - methylphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 8b ). yield = 54 % ( 0 . 01 g ); r t = 0 . 25 ( hexane - acetone , 4 : 1 ); 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , δ ) 0 . 95 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 1 . 2 – 2 . 4 ( m , steroid envelope ), 2 . 31 ( s , 3h , c 28 methyl - h ), 2 . 7 – 2 . 9 ( m , 2h , c 6 — h ), 3 . 27 ( s , 1h , 17p hydroxyl - h ), 5 . 96 ( d , 1h , j = 13 . 1 hz , c 21 vinyl - h , 6 . 44 ( d , 1h , j = 13 . 1 hz , c 20 vinyl - h ), 6 . 53 ( d , 1h , j = 2 . 6 hz c 4 — h ), 6 . 60 ( dd , 1h , j = 2 . 6 , 8 . 3 hz , c 2 — h ), 7 . 03 ( d , 1h , j = 7 . 3 hz , c 25 — h ), 7 . 11 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , c 1 — h ), 7 . 17 ( t , 1h , j = 7 . 6 hz , c 26 — h ), 7 . 38 – 7 . 43 ( m , 2h , c 23 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 95 ( s , 1h , c 3 hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , 6 ) 14 . 58 ( c 18 ), 21 . 42 ( c 28 : methyl ). 23 . 85 ( c 15 ), 27 . 40 ( c 11 ), 28 . 30 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 32 . 97 ( cl 2 ), 38 . 4 ( c 16 ), 40 . 9 ( c 8 ), 44 . 7 ( cg ), 48 . 8 ( c 13 ), 50 . 1 ( c 14 ), 84 . 3 ( c 17 ), 113 . 6 ( c 2 ), 116 . 0 ( c 4 ), 127 . 1 ( c 1 ), 127 . 8 ( c 27 ), 128 . 1 ( c25 ), 128 . 3 ( c 26 ), 129 . 7 ( c 21 ), 131 . 4 ( c 23 ), 132 . 0 ( c 10 ), 137 . 1 ( c 20 ), 137 . 6 ( c 24 ), 138 . 45 ( c 5 ), 138 . 5 ( c 22 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ); anal . calcd for c 29 h 36 o 3 : c , 80 . 55 ; h , 8 . 33 . found : c , 80 . 00 ; h , 8 . 41 17α - 20e - 21 ( 4 - methoxyphenyl )- 19 - norpregna - 1 , 3 , 5 ,( 10 ), 20 - tetraene - 3 , 17β - diol ( 17α - e -( 4 - methoxyphenyl )- vinyl estradiol ) ( 9a ). yield = 36 %; r t = 0 . 23 ( chcl 3 — ch 3 oh , 99 : 1 ); 1 h nmr ( 300 mhz , acetone - d 6 , δ ) 0 . 99 ( s , 3h , c 18 methyl - h ), 3 . 68 ( s , 1h , 17p hydroxy - h ), 3 . 78 ( s , 3h , c 28 : methoxy - h ), 6 . 46 ( d , 1h , j = 16 . 1 hz , c 21 — h ), 6 . 51 – 6 . 59 ( m , 3h , c 2 , c 4 , c 20 — h ), 6 . 88 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 8 hz , c 24 , c 26 — h ); 7 . 07 ( d , 1h , j = 8 . 3 hz , cl - h ); 7 . 39 ( d , 2h , j = 8 . 8 hz , c 23 , c 27 — h ), 7 . 95 ( s , 1h , c 3 hydroxy - h ); 13 c nmr ( 75 . 4 mhz , acetone - d 6 , δ ) 14 . 7 ( c 18 ), 24 . 1 ( c 15 ), 27 . 3 ( c 11 ), 28 . 3 ( c 7 ), ( c 6 ), 33 . 4 ( c 12 ), 37 . 3 ( c 16 ), 40 . 7 ( c 8 ), 44 . 7 ( cg ), 48 . 2 ( c 13 ), 50 . 0 ( c 14 ), 55 . 5 ( c 28 : methoxy ), 84 . 1 ( c 17 ), 113 . 5 ( c 2 ), 114 . 7 ( c 24 , c 26 ), 115 . 9 ( c 4 ), 127 . 0 ( c 1 ), 127 . 0 ( c 21 ), 128 . 3 ( c 23 , c 27 ), 131 . 4 ( c 22 ), 132 . 1 ( c10 ), 134 . 9 ( c 20 ), 138 . 4 ( c 5 ), 155 . 9 ( c 3 ), 159 . 9 ( c 25 ). in the above procedures , the solid phase synthesis methodology was applied using carboxylated resins to generate a series of novel er - lbd ligands , or estradiol derivatives . the purification steps were simplified and simultaneously produced both the e - and z - isomers . yield may be improved by modifications in both the coupling and cleavage steps for a chemically more sensitive z - isomer . one of the key elements of the synthetic scheme was the selection of a linker that could be both formed and cleaved under mild conditions . 17α - substituted estradiols were unstable under strongly acidic conditions such as those frequently used to release products from the resins . therefore the resin of choice was carboxylated polystyrene which could be esterified under neutral conditions and ultimately cleaved with mild base . compound 8a was prepared using the carboxylated resin obtained either by oxidation of a wang resin using jones reagent ( bowden , 1946 ) or by carboxylation of a polystyrene resin via lithiation with n - butyl lithium ( farrall , 1976 ). the reactions for both methods were easily monitored by the appearance of the 1700 cm − 1 absorption in the ft - ir spectrum . the loading capacity of the carboxylated resins was determined by coupling 17α - ethynyl estradiol onto the resins using dcc in the presence of catalytic amount of dmap and measuring its subsequently cleaved estradiol derivatives from the aliquot of the resins . the loading 1 of oxidized wang resin was 0 . 4 – 0 . 6 mmol g − 1 and that of carboxylated polystyrene was 1 . 5 – 1 . 9 mmol g − 1 . once the utility of coupling through the ester linkage using carboxy polystyrene resin was confirmed , the commercially available carboxy poolystyrene was used for the remainder of the work . the loading yield of the reaction using the resins with already known loading capacity ( 2 . 47 mmol g − 1 ) was 82 %. the yield was determined by ‘ cleave and characterize ’ methods . as shown in fig1 , the synthesis of the analogs was initiated by coupling the 3 - phenolic group of 17α - ethynyl estradiol to the carboxy polystyrene resin . the steroids on the resins were confirmed by an antimony ( iii ) chloride assay ( carr , 1926 ; blatz , 1972 ; jork , 1990 ). due to the absence of color change with bromocresol green , no free carboxylic acid groups remained on the resin ( gordon , 1972 ). the appearance of a peak at 3301 cm − 1 in the ir spectrum , corresponding to the c — h stretch of the ethynyl group , also confirmed that the reaction and a shift of carbonyl absorption to higher frequency ( from 1690 – 1734 cm − 1 ) was also observed . the subsequent hydrostannylation step incorporated either the use of hydrostannylation of bound ethynyl estradiol ( method a ) or hydrostannylation of ethynyl estradiol in solution phase synthesis followed by coupling to the resin ( method b ). the resin - bound 17α - ethynyl estradiol was hydrostannylated with tributyltin hydride using triethyl - borane as a radical initiator ( nozaki , 1989 ) to afford a mixture of the 17α - e / z - tri - n - butylstannylvinyl estradiol in 20 – 30 % ( 0 . 12 mmol g − 1 of e , 0 . 01 mmol g - 1 of z ) loading yields . varying the reaction conditons , e . g . different solvents , temperatures , or reaction times , did not improve the yields . therefore , a direct coupling of 17α - e / z - tri - n - butylstannyl - vinyl estradiols was used to overcome the low efficiency of this step . 17α - ethynyl estradiol was hydrostannylated to 60 ° c . and the crude mixture was directly transferred to the resin slurry in ch 2 cl 2 . the mixture was treated with a 2 – 3 fold excess of dcc and a catalytic amount of dmap was added . the loading yield for the coupling reaction was 0 . 59 mmol g − 1 with a z / e ratio = 1 : 20 . the low loading yield was due to the use of the acetic acid for the protonation of phenoxide ion after cleavage , subjecting the products to protiodestannylation and reducing the expected loading yield . because the cleavage after hydrostannylation did not provide a precise loading yield , the dry weight difference between pre - and post - reaction was subsequently used to determine the loading yield . using the dry weight difference method , the yield for the hydrostannylation reaction was 1 . 55 mmol g − 1 for both e - and z - isomers . because hydrostannylation on the resin did not afford satisfactory yields . method b was the method of choice . the ratio of e and z isomers is a function of the reaction temperature , time and stoichiometric ratio of tributyltin hydride to alkyne . at 60 ° c . the reaction generated greater than 20 : 1 ( e / z ) ratio bound to the solid phase . to increase the ratio of the z - isomer , triethylborane was used as a radical initiator and the reaction was run at low temperature . the proportion of the z - isomer ( z / e = 1 : 10 ) was increased . however , the reaction required a longer time and the loading yield for the hydrostannylation was slightly lower than at higher temperature ( 1 . 44 mmol g − 1 by the dry weight difference method ) because of more unreacted 17α - ethynyl estradiol in the reaction mixture . the resin - bound hydrostannnylated estradiol was subjected to the stille coupling reaction ( stille , 1985 ) using a variety of substituted aryl halides to generate the target compounds ( see table 2 ). as shown in fig1 , pd ( pph 3 ) 4 was used as the catalyst for the reaction and 3 , 5 - di - t - butyl - 4 - hydroxytoluene ( bht ) was added as a scavenger . the use of pd ( pph 3 ) 4 generated an insoluble by - product that caused coloration of the resin , however , it was easily removed by rinsing it through the built - in filter ( 50 – 70 μm ). after completion of all the reaction steps , the product was cleaved from the resin by saponification with 5 n naoh dissolved in ch 3 oh - dioxane ( 1 : 3 ). as shown in table 2 , the unoptimized yields of the stille reactions on solid phase ranged from 17 – 75 %, comparable to those observed for solution phase synthesis . compounds 5a ( para - trifluoromethylphenyl , e - isomer ) and 5b ( para - trifluoromethylphenyl , z - isomer ) were isolated from the stille reaction in a ratio of 98 : 2 . compound 7a ( meta - methylphenyl , e - isomer ) and 7b ( meta - methylphenyl , z - isomer ) were also obtained in a ratio of 96 : 4 . although the z - tri - n - butylstannyl vinyl estradiol was initially present on the resin , no z - isomers of compounds 3a , 4a , 6a , or 8a were isolated from the stille coupling , instead , 17α - vinyl estradiol , resulting from protiodestannylation was recovered as a side product . because an excess of reagent was used to drive the reaction to completion , unreacted hydrostannylated 17α - e / z -( tri - n - butylstannyl )- vinyl estradiol was no detected after the stille reaction . it is possible that the z - isomers either isomerized to thermodynamically more stable e - isomers under the conditions required for the stille reaction or underwent protiodestannylation . as previously observed , the z - isomer is much more susceptible to protiodestannylation than the e - isomer and the appearance of the side product under either solid phase or solution phase synthesis was approximately the same . the isolated product were characterized by standard spectroscopic methods ( ft - ir , 1 h and 13 c nmr ) and analytical methods . the data were consistent with the proposed structures . stereochemical assignments for compounds 5a and 5b were based on the c 20 , c 21 olefinic proton coupling constants for which e = 16 hz and z - 12 . 9 hz , respectively . for compounds 7a and 7b , the observed coupling constants were 18 . 2 hz of the c 20 e - vinyl proton and 13 . 1 hz for the c 20 z - vinyl proton . in 13 c nmr , long range couplings were observed for the compounds 3a - 5a and 5b containing the trifluoromethyl group . coupling with strongly electronegative fluorine was found at the carbon directly attached to the fluorine ( 1j c - f ) and one ( 2 j c - f ) and two carbons distant ( 3 j c - f ). the carbons appeared as quartets and the coupling constants were approximately 1 j c - f = 270 hz . 2 j c - f = 32 hz . 3 j c - f = 3 – 5 hz respectively . ortho , meta , and para ( trifluoromethyl ) phenylvinyl estradiol isomers were evaluated for estrogen receptor - ligand binding domain ( er - lbd ) affinity . the properties of the aryl substituent and its position on the ring ( ortho / meta / para ) affect receptor binding . trifluoromethyl group was introduced onto phenylvinyl estradiol either at the ortho , meta , or para positions . these compounds were examined for their ability to stimulate or inhibit estrogen responses in two assay systems . the initial system evaluated the ability of the ligand to stimulate the proliferation of mcf - 7 cells and as the results in fig1 indicate , the ortho - isomer produced a full agonist response comparable to that of estradiol . when the ligand was added to the cells in the presence of 1 nm estradiol , there was neither an enhancement nor a diminution of the proliferative response . the meta - and para - isomers gave substantially different profiles . the meta - isomer demonstrated a weak proliferative effect at doses greater than 1 nm and antagonized the effects of estradiol at the same doses . the para - isomer , however , did not elicit a proliferative response until a 10 nm dose was employed and decreases in the estradiol effects were observed below 1 nm . therefore , the position of the trifluoromethyl group exerted a significant effect on the efficacy of the ligand . these trifluoromethyl substituted compounds were also studied with an immature female rat uterotrophic growth assay ; the results are shown in fig1 , 13 , and 14 . in the estrogenic assay , the ortho - isomer produced an effect comparable to estradiol at a 3 nm level and substantial estrogenic effects at 10 and 100 nm . the meta - and para - isomers , however , demonstrated little or no estrogenic effects , even at 10 and 100 nm . therefore , the agonist responses observed in the in vitro cell proliferation assay were carried over to the intact animal as well . the antiestrogen assay evaluated the ability of the isomers to block the uterotrophic effect induced by 1 nm estradiol . under these conditions , the ortho isomer produced an enhancement of the estrogenic response at both 10 and 100 nm . the meta - isomer demonstrated no significant effect on the estradiol response at either dose , however , the para isomer reduced the estrogenic response at the 100 nm level . therefore , in both estrogen responsive cells and tissues these new ligands are producing differential responses in affinity and efficacy related to the site of trifluoromethyl substitution on the phenyl ring . the cellular target for antiandrogen therapy , the androgen receptor ( ar ), is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily which has been studied extensively over the past decade ( tsai , 1994 ). members of this receptor bear a strong structural similarity ( homology ) and utilize similar signaling pathways to express their biological actions . at the molecular level , the ar , like the other steroid hormone receptors , is composed of discrete domains that are responsible for specific functions . the hormone binding domain ( hbd ), the sequence of aminoacids near the n - terminus of the ar , recognizes and binds testosterone with high affinity but not other hormones or small endogenous molecules ( weatherman , 1999 ; simons , 1998 ). this region of the receptor has been examined using x - ray crystallography to elucidate the aminoacid residues responsible for the recognition of specific hormones . the hormone binding domains on the estrogen receptor ( er ), progesterone receptor ( pgr ) and retinoic acid receptor ( rar ) provide a common fold for the endogenous hormone , which also strongly suggest the types of conformational changes that occur upon ligand binding ( brzozowski , 1997 ; tannenbaum , 1998 ; shiau , 1998 ; williams , 1998 ; renaud , 1995 ; klaholz , 1998 ). the conformational changes , particularly those associated with helix - 12 , assist in the recruitment of specific coactivator proteins that appear to initiate the action of the general transcription apparatus ( resche - rigon , 1998 ; mckenna , 1999 ; klinge , 2000 ). in accordance with the present invention , the steroidal nucleus is the address component , which directs the molecule to the hbd where , for agonists , the d - ring substituents direct helix - 12 into a conformation that exposes the activation function - 2 ( af - 2 ) or message component . for known er and pgr antagonists , the steroid nucleus present in most drugs provides the appropriate address . however , the incorporation of an additional functional group interferes with the movement of helix - 12 , and produces a full or partial antagonist response ( message ). most of the antihormones known in the art incorporate that additional functional group at either the 11β - or 7α - position of the steroid ( see fig7 ). the present invention shows that antagonism can be generated through introduction of an appropriate 17α - substituent . significant research efforts have focused on the synthesis and evaluation of compounds designed to either mimic or block the effects of the endogenous androgen , testosterone . while many steroidal compounds can mimic testosterone , relatively few were able to block its effects in target tissues and virtually none were effective in treating hormone responsive prostate cancer ( teutsch , 1995 ). nonsteroidal agents , however , such as ( hydroxy ) flutamide , nilutamide , and bicalutamide ( sciarra , 1990 ; tucker , 1988 , 1990 ), have demonstrated clinical efficacy for the treatment of prostatic carcinoma , even though their affinity for the ar is relatively low when compared to testosterone ( kokontis , 1999 ; battmann , 1998 ). recent publications have disclosed another class of nonsteroidal antiandrogens which have potential as clinically useful agents ( hamann , 1998 ; edwards , 1999 ; higuchi , 1999 ; kong , 2000 ). analogs of these compounds also demonstrate agonist / antagonist responses at other nuclear receptors ( pooley , 1998 ; zhi , 1998 , 1999 , 2000 ). because the nonsteroidal antiandrogens do not correspond to any current steroid hormone pharmacophore , it is possible that they may primarily effect only the message region ( helix - 12 ) of the ar - hbd . a potent interaction at that site would still compete with agonist ligand binding for the address region , not entirely unlike the situation for the dopamine transporter inhibitors where structurally diverse families of ligands not only inhibit dopamine and cocaine binding but also , by associating with overlapping sites , inhibit the binding of each other . thus , the present invention combines features from both the steroid nucleus ( address component ) and the nonsteroidal antagonist pharmacophore ( message component ) ( see fig8 ). a combination of organotin chemistry and palladium catalyzed coupling reactions is used for the synthesis of the message components ( see fig1 ). the 1 - ethynyl - 1 - aminoperhydroindanes which would incorporate the c - and d - rings of the steroid nucleus is prepared from the corresponding 1 - ethynyl - 1 - acetoxy analogs using a cu ( i )- assisted aminolysis . the ethynyl cycloalkyl alcohols or amines readily undergo hydrostannation to give the corresponding e - and z - stannylvinyl intermediates which can be coupled with the requisite mono - or di - substituted aryl iodide under stille coupling conditions ( farina , 1995 ; casado , 1998 ). three 3 ′- or 4 ′- substituted , three 3 ′-, 4 ′- disubstituted , and three 3 ′-, 5 ′- disubstituted phenyl iodides are used to generate a total of 18 compounds . while there are no obvious choices for the optimal substituents , the structure activity relationships ( sar ) for antiandrogens suggest that electron withdrawing groups ( e . g ., — no 2 , cf 3 ) enhance potency . therefore , these groups are used with one electron releasing group in the first series ( tucker , 1988 ). suzuki coupling reaction is used with vinylboronic acid ( suzuki , 1999 ). the e - vinylboronic acid is accessed directly by hydroboration of the alkyne with catecholborane followed by hydrolysis . the z - isomer is obtained from the z - vinylstannane via idododestannylation , followed by coupling with bispinacolatodiboron , and hydrolysis . for the synthesis of the spirocyclic ether or amine message components , the coupling partner for the z - vinylstannane ( or boronic acid ) requires an orthoiodo ( bromo ) phenol derivative . halogenation of the commercially available 3 ′- or 4 ′- substituted phenol gives the intermediate which is initially protected as the silyl ether . the z - vinyl arene is made by the standard stille or suzuki coupling methods . the conditions developed by buchwald and hartwig to effect the intramolecular aryl amine / ether formation may be used ( wolfe , 1998 , 1999 ; yang , 1999 ; hartwig , 1998a , b ) deprotection of the phenol , conversion to the triflate , and coupling with an appropriate pd catalyst , such as pd 2 ( dba ) 3 , and an activating ligand , such as binap , will effect the cyclization . the final product is provided by the deprotection of the amine . each new compound synthesized is characterized by the standard spectrometric methods — high resolution mass spectrometry ( hrms ), h - 1 / c - 13 - nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry ( nmr ) to confirm the proposed molecular structures . solution conformations is determined by using 1d - and 2d - nmr techniques , methods of which are described above . the use of both conformational analysis and computational methods , more probable solution conformations are identified , which provides information with regard to key structural features and how they influence molecular conformations . compounds prepared containing the message components may be screened by a bioevaluation protocol already established through a commercially available company ( e . g ., mds - panlabs , located in bothell , wash .) to determine their ar affinity , efficacy and selectivity . receptors from rat ventral prostate tissue may be used to determine the ic50 and ki values . [ h - 3 ] mibolerone may be used as the radioligand . synthesized hydroxyflutamide , nilutamide , bicalutamide and lg 120907 is evaluated as standard ar ligands . those new compounds that demonstrate ar affinities & gt ; 10 % that of bicalutamide or lg 120907 will be evaluated for their affinities for the other nuclear receptors . other sources for receptors and their radioligands include erα - human recombinant from insect st9 cells , [ h - 3 ] estradiol , gr - human jerkat cells , [ h - 3 ] dexamethasone , and pgr - bovine , [ h - 3 ] r - 5020 . compounds that express a significant selectivity for ar (& gt ; 10 : 1 ) is tested for their efficacy in the rat agonism / antagonism model . in vitro efficacy model for testing the compounds for antagonism is the use of cotransfection and whole cell receptor binding ( hamann , 1998 ). preliminary sars is determined from the ic50 and ki data from the screening of the new compounds . e - vs . z - stereochemistry of the acyclic series of compounds is studied as well as the effects of mono - vs . di - substitution and 3 - vs . 4 - substitution . the cyclized compounds are compared with the acyclic series - to identify particular substituent trends . the qsar - comfa module of sybil is used to clarify the individual parameters ( gantchev , 1994 ). the physicochemical parameters developed by hansch may also be used to evaluate the data ( gantchev , 1994 ). the most potent ligands are analyzed for the lowest energy conformations using quanta - charmm / mm3 force fields ( wurtz , 1998 ) and compared with those from the nmr conformational studies to rationalize the initial sar . this allows for better determination of which substituents are most effective in contributing to ar affinity , selectivity and antihormonal response . subsequently , the selected substituents is used for incorporation into the address - message composite . 17α - ethynyl -( 19nor ) testoterone and its dihydroderivative ( address component ) is used as the starting material . the message components may be obtained from commercially available ( or readily synthesized ) mono - and disubstituted iodophenols . the same message components as with the estrogen study are used — the nilutamide / bicalutamide family of nonsteroidal antagonists and the more potent ligand pharmaceutical antagonists . for the message components analogous to flutamide and bicalutamide , the ethylene group is selected as an isosteric substitution for the amide bond ( luthman , 1996 ). the method for synthesis of the ( nor ) testosterone derivatives with the message component at the 17α - position is similar to the steps used for the synthesis of antiestrogens described herein . the antiandrogens of the present invention will include the steroid nucleus ( a - d rings ) and will provide functionality in the a - ring ( 3 c ═ o /— oh ; 4 , 5 - c ═ c ). as an embodiment , these groups are prepared to protect them as ketals , esters or silyl / enol ethers ( hoyte , 1993 ; van den bos , 1998 ). battmann , t ., branche , c ., borichoux , f ., cerede , e ., philibert , d ., goubet , f ., teutsch , g ., gallard ,- kelly , m . pharmacological profile of ru58642 , a potent systemic antiandrogen for the treatment of androgen - dependent disorders . j . steroid biochem . molec . biol . 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( 1988 ) 31 : 954 – 959 ; van den bos , j . c ., rijks , l . j . m ., van doremalen , p . a . p . m ., de bruin , k ., janssen , a . g . m ., van royen , e . a . new iodinated progestins as potential ligands for progesterone receptor imaging in breast cancer . part 1 : synthesis and in vitro pharmacological characterization . nucl . med . biol . ( 1998 ) 25 : 781 – 789 ; weatherman , r . v ., fletterick , r . j ., scanlon , t . s . nuclear receptor ligands and ligand binding domains . ann . rev . biochem . ( 1999 ) 68 : 559 – 581 ; williams , s . p ., sigler , p . b . atomic structure of progesterone complexed with its receptor . nature ( 1998 ) 393 : 392 – 396 ; wolfe , j . p ., singh , r . a ., yang , b . h ., buchwald , s . l . highly reactive palladium catalysts for suzuki coupling reactions . j . amer . chem . soc . 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( 2000 ) 10 : 415 – 418 ; zhi , l ., tegley , c . m ., edwards , j . p . west , s . j ., marschke , k . b ., gottardis , m . m ., mais , d . e . jones , t . k . 5 - alkyl - 1 , 2 - dihydrochromeno [ 3 , 4 - f ] quinolines : a novel class of nonsteroidal progesterone receptor modulators . bioorg . med . chem . lett . ( 1998 ) 8 : 3365 – 3370 ; zhi , l ., tegley , c . m ., marschke , k . b ., mais , d . e ., jones , t . k . 5 - aryl - 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 - tetrahydrochromeno [ 3 , 4 - f ] quinolin - 3 - ones as a novel class of progesterone agonist : effect of a - ring modification . j . med . chem . ( 1999 ) 42 : 1466 – 1472 . while the present invention has been described in conjunction with a preferred embodiment , one of ordinary skill , after reading the foregoing specification , will be able to effect various changes , substitutions of equivalents , and other alterations to the compositions and approaches set forth herein . it is therefore intended that the protection granted by letters patent hereon be limited only by the definitions contained in the appended claims and equivalents thereof .	2
a sheet form workpiece made of material such as thin paper is shown at 10 in fig1 . the sheet 10 has a surface 101 and surface 102 on opposite sides for bearing indicia consisting of illustrations and textural matter giving instructions regarding or descriptions of a product or contents of a container to which an outsert is to be affixed . the sheet or workpiece 10 has an upper edge 11 , a lower edge 12 , a left edge 13 , and a right edge 14 . the original flat workpiece article 10 is divided into two panels 15 and 16 each having a first and a second surface 15a and 15b , and 16a and 16b , respectively , by a longitudinal fold line 17 . the panels 15 and 16 have respective edges 11a and 11b at their upper ends and 12a at their lower ends . in accordance with this invention , a through opening is formed in all of the panels except one . thus , in the form of the invention shown in fig1 wherein a two - panel species is illustrated , a through opening is formed in one of them . the through - opening may take various structural shapes and configurations . however , one form which is particularly convenient to make and which lends itself to the principles of the invention is to form an aperture near the top or the bottom of the selected panel . thus , in the form of the invention shown in fig1 an aperture 18 is formed in and through panel 15 near edge 11a thereof . the through opening 18 may also be in the form of a corner cut 18a , a &# 34 ; v &# 34 ;- or other - shaped notch 18b , a punched hole as shown at 18 , a series of such holes , or a narrow transverse strip 18c , as shown in fig8 through 10 . in fig2 the panels 15 and 16 are folded along the longitudinal fold line 17 , so that the edges 13 and 14 will overlie one another and the first panel surfaces 15a and 16a of the respective panels will confront or overlie one another . a portion of the surface 16a near the upper edge 11b thereof will be exposed through the panel 15 via the through opening or aperture 18 in that panel . in fig3 a plurality of parallel folds transverse or at right angles to the longitudinal fold 17 are shown at 25 and divide each respective panel into a corresponding plurality of panel sections , for example , separate sections 103 - 113 inclusive . these folds may be spaced apart any desired distance , depending on the desired final size of the completely folded outsert , with allowance for the accumulating thickness of the material 10 as aggregated through multiple folds . as shown in fig3 the first fold 25a reveals an undersurface 16b the panel 16 . this fold 25a also brings portions of the second surface 15b of the panel 15 together . successive folds may be made as on lines 25b or 25c , closing the second surface 16b of panel 16 upon itself . any convenient order of folding may be followed , so long as , in accordance with the principles of the present invention , the uppermost part 16c of the second surface 16b of the panel 16 extends from the top of the folded outsert as shown in fig4 around the folds 25 as at 26 opposite from the upper edge 11a of the panel 15 , as opposed to extending around all the folds 25 as at 27 , adjacent the exposed surface 15b . as disclosed in fig4 the final step before sealing of the outsert is application of an adhesive product 29 to join the surfaces 16a and 16b through the panel 15 at the through opening or aperture 18 . this step may be accomplished by means of a glue gun 28a having a discharge nozzle , or needle jet in alignment with the through opening and positioned to project a supply of adhesive through the opening 18 and against the inside surface 102 of the outside panel 16b . application of the adhesive is timed as to onset and cutoff by means of an electronic timer shown schematically at t and having adjustable controls shown at c . alternatively , a gun shown at 28b may apply glue 29 to the surface 16b . the gun 28b has a needle jet disposed in a position to deposit the adhesive on the surface 16b in register with the position of the aperture 18 when the edge 11a of the panel 15 is brought into adjacency with the fold 26 on the surface 16b . thus , the adhesive - coated surface projects the adhesive through the opening and against the inside surface of the outside panel . it should be noted that folding of the panels of the sheet 10 may be accomplished in any order , and with any number of panels defined by transverse fold lines 25 , so long as the fold is made along the longitudinal fold line 17 when at least three transverse fold panels remain to be folded together , including the end panel 103 . it is also possible to define any number of transverse fold panels , whether odd or even , providing only that a workpiece similar to that shown in fig4 is provided as a final step before application of adhesive material and sealing . as shown in fig5 the completed workpiece constitutes an outsert embodying the principles of the present invention with a single outer surface wrapped upon itself and with no free edges exposed to be caught and torn or dislodged . in accordance with the principles of the present invention , an outsert may be provided with more than two panels . as disclosed by fig6 a workpiece is shown having three panels 30 , 31 , and 32 provided in a sheet form article 33 . the panels 30 and 31 are separated by a longitudinal fold line 34 , while the panels 30 and 32 are separated by a longitudinal fold line 35 parallel to line 34 . all of the panels but one are provided with through openings as at 36 , 36 near one end 37 of the sheet 33 . any arrangement of these apertures 36 in the panels 30 , 31 , 32 of the sheet 33 may be provided , providing only that the panels may be folded so the apertures 36 register with one another when folded so that the non - apertured panel , in this case panel 30 is on one side of all the apertured panels 31 , 32 after the longitudinal folds have been made , as in fig7 . in other respects the workpiece 33 is completed to form an outsert in accordance with the steps and procedures already described . in both forms of the invention , the method of making the outsert is characterized by initially forming a selected number of through openings ( n ) through a sheet form member in transversely spaced relation near one longitudinal end of the article . the sheet form member is then folded longitudinally to form n + 1 panels and with the through openings , if there be more than one , in aligned register with one another to form n panels with surfaces interrupted by the through openings and one panel with an unbroken surface . the panels are then folded transversely to form a plurality of panel sections overlying one another and an adhesive is applied between the innermost surface of the unbroken panel and the outermost surface of the body of the folded article at the through openings . the surfaces are then joined through the through openings to secure the outsert in assembled relationship with one another . in the first form of the invention n equals 1 and , of course , in the second form of the invention , n equals any number greater than 1 . in both forms of the invention , the finished outsert article is characterized by the provision of an adhesive between one side of the unbroken surface and the opposite side of that surface of the folded article at a location adjacent thereto through the through opening to secure the article in folded - together relationship . although various minor modifications might be suggested by those versed in the art , it should be understood that i wish to embody within the scope of the patent warranted hereon all such modifications as reasonably and properly come within the scope of my contribution to the art .	8
referring now to a specific , though non - limiting , embodiment of the invention shown in fig1 , a tundra region 1 is shown in which a number of support posts 2 are disposed in a number of post holes drilled into the tundra . the support posts 2 support a substantially level drilling or production platform 4 comprised of numerous interconnected modular platform sections . in certain embodiments , a cylindrical ( or other shape ) winterizer 6 encloses and winterizes a drilling rig ( not shown ), and a number of easily transportable modular platform sections 8 are installed around the drilling rig . in some embodiments , for example , where drilling is carried out at very cold temperatures ( e . g ., in arctic tundra regions ), the rig area is heated during drilling operations . in a particular embodiment in which the platform is used for hydrate production , the rig area is only heated to an intermediate temperature of about + 10 degrees f ., so that recovered hydrates will not thaw and can be preserved for analysis . in other embodiments , however , the rig area is cooled to permit more comfortable drilling conditions during warmer summer seasons . according to an alternative embodiment , a crane 10 is positioned on a deck portion of platform 4 , and is sufficiently mobile to move around on the deck area so that the crane can be used to carry out a number of different lifting and support functions . for example , in one example embodiment , crane 10 is used to assist in the initial outfitting of the platform , and thereafter to move spools of drilling string and other drilling supplies around the platform during drilling and production operations . one or more cranes can also be fixed mounted at key points . in other embodiments , a group of interconnected housing modules are assembled to provide living quarters for personnel working on the rig . in some embodiments , the housing platform employs a support post and platform module construction method similar to the platform described above , except that housing modules are disposed on the top of the platform deck instead of drilling modules . referring now to an example embodiment shown in fig2 , an arctic platform is provided wherein a plurality of support posts 2 are inserted into a plurality of corresponding post holes 20 that have been drilled into the tundra . in one embodiment , support posts 2 are fixed in the post holes 20 by a process known as ad freeze , which comprises pouring a fluid slurry ( for example , a slurry of water , sand and gravel ) into the post holes 20 in order to fix the support posts 2 in place after the slurry freezes and hardens . in other embodiments , the support posts are drilled or hammered directly into the ground surface . in a further embodiment , a plurality of modular , interconnectible platform sections 4 are installed atop and supported by the support posts 2 after the support posts have been frozen in place ; in still further embodiments , a plurality of drilling container sections 8 are then stacked on top of the platform sections 4 to permit convenient local storage of drilling bits and other equipment related to the drilling operation . in the particular embodiment depicted in fig2 , the well being drilled 22 is disposed beneath a wellhead cellar 24 that supports a wellhead 26 and blowout prevention stack 28 . in the depicted embodiment , a substructure housing member 30 is disposed above the blowout prevention stack 28 during drilling operations so that the wellhead and blowout stack are safely housed beneath the housing structure 30 . in certain other embodiments , however , drilling rig 32 is disposed above the substructure housing 30 so that drilling rig 32 is instead contained within a winterizer 6 . similar to the embodiment shown in fig1 , drilling platform 4 is comprised of a plurality of interconnectible , modular platform sections 34 and associated deck sections 36 . in a presently preferred embodiment , drilling or production platform 4 comprises 8 platform sections in width , and is supported by 9 rows of evenly spaced support posts 2 frozen into corresponding post holes 20 drilled in the tundra . referring now to the example embodiment of fig3 , a drilling platform 4 is shown in cross section through a centerline of the well bore , drawn along a length of drilling rig 32 . in some embodiments , wellhead cellar 24 is disposed in operative communication with a pair of long wellhead platform sections 40 and 42 . in the particular embodiment depicted in fig3 , drilling platform 4 further comprises three rows of support posts 2 . according to a presently preferred embodiment , arctic drilling platform 4 further comprises about sixteen individual , interconnected platform modules , each of which are about 12 . 5 feet wide and about 50 feet long ; the resulting drilling platform 4 is therefore substantially square , and measures about a 100 feet on each side . in the aforementioned embodiment , there are about twenty - seven support posts 2 , each of which supports the weight and alignment of various platform sections . in further embodiments , one or more additional support posts 2 are strategically installed to lend additional stability and load capacity to the system . in other embodiments , additional wells 44 are drilled to serve as backup wellbores in the event the primary wellbore encounters technical problems such as a broken drill bit or a jammed drilling string . according to a further embodiment , additional wells 44 are used to drill an underground pipeline routed to a remote location so that production removed from the primary well can be pipelined to a remote location in coordination with the ongoing drilling operation . the ability to drill an underground pipeline is particularly useful in environmentally sensitive sites in that removal and transportation of oil , gas and / or hydrates reserves can all be carried out deep beneath the ground surface , thereby reducing disturbance of the surrounding tundra region . the additional wells 44 can also be used to establish a field size . according to a method of practicing the invention shown in fig4 - 9 , a plurality of holes 50 are first drilled into a ground surface or frozen tundra region 1 . in some embodiments , post holes 50 are evenly spaced apart ; however , in other embodiments , additional support posts are strategically installed to lend greater stability and structural rigidity to the platform system . in other embodiments , only a few post holes ( or even a single hole ) are drilled to receive the support posts of a smaller , stand - alone work module , for example , a nearby secondary well drilled to relieve or apply fluid pressure to the drilling operation . according to the embodiment shown in fig5 , a plurality of support posts 2 are then inserted into each of the post holes 50 , with lower portions of the posts being supported by a plurality of post hole ground surfaces 60 , and intermediate portions of the posts being supported by one or more support brackets 64 and 66 attached to provide a temporary surface fitting at the surface level 62 of tundra region 1 while the support posts are being frozen in place within the post holes . according to a further embodiment , once the support posts 2 have been fixed in drilled post holes 50 , a slurry comprised of water , sand and gravel mixture is poured into the hole and allowed to freeze . according to still further embodiments , adjustable support brackets 64 and 66 are inserted near the top of the hole during the slurry freezing process , so that the tops of the support posts 2 stay accurately aligned during the slurry freezing process . in the example embodiment of fig5 , a plurality of adjustable shoulder nuts 70 , 72 and 74 are disposed near the tops of each of the support posts 2 ; in the depicted embodiment , the adjustable nuts are disposed at different elevations ( as indicated by lines 76 , 78 and 80 ) due to localized inaccuracies in the depths of the post holes . as seen in the example embodiment shown in fig6 , adjustable shoulder nut 72 is then raised ( for example , by threading the nut up the shaft of a complementary threading formed on a portion of the support post ) up to the same elevation level as the other adjustable nuts 70 and 74 ( as indicated by lines 80 , 82 and 84 ). in this manner , a level plane is formed to support the later installation of a drilling platform , although in other embodiments , portions of the drilling platform are assembled prior to the drilling of the post holes , and whole sections of previously assembled platform modules are installed on the legs , and then leveled using the adjustable nuts . those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that when various platform sections are of a common cross - sectional thickness , it is convenient to set each of the adjusting nuts at about the same height . however , in other embodiments it is beneficial to set the adjustable nuts at different predetermined heights rather than a common height , depending upon the actual structural requirements imposed by various operational environments , for example , to build up the pitch of a side of the platform disposed on a downward slope . fig7 shows the cross - sectional platform view of fig6 , further comprising a pair of interconnected modular platform sections 92 and 94 installed over a plurality of adjustable shoulder nuts . in one example embodiment , four interconnected modular platform sections are installed over the shoulder nuts of four support posts , for example , the two platform sections 92 and 94 depicted herein and two additional modular sections ( not shown ) disposed directly behind sections 92 and 94 . when the installation of deck sections is complete , workers are provided with a level and secure platform surface from which to drill , and effluent and metal cuttings can be contained in the box - like lower body portions of the deck sections . in still further embodiments , a canvas tarp or the like is disposed beneath and around an outer perimeter of the deck sections , and serves as a skirt or trap to ensure that as much waste as possible is captured and recovered from the drilling site . referring now to the example embodiment of fig8 , a full level of interconnected modular platform sections 100 - 105 is then installed over each of the adjustable shoulder nuts . according to one aspect of the invention , minor adjustments to the heights of the shoulder nuts are then effected in order to correct the level of the platform on an as - needed basis . according to various other embodiments , the leveling corrections can be effected when the individual deck sections are being installed , or after all or some of the sections have already been assembled and interlocked . in the example embodiment of fig9 , a plurality of modular storage sections 106 - 109 is then installed above at least a portion of the platform deck . in some embodiments , the various storage sections 106 - 109 are strategically arranged so as to conveniently contain the equipment and supplies required to drill and maintain a well , for example , drill string and associated casings , lubricants , power generators , etc . according to the example embodiment shown in fig1 , the upper portion 120 of a support post 2 further comprises an adjustable shoulder nut 124 disposed at the bottom of the adjustment stroke . in some embodiments , upper post portion 120 has a reduced cross section 122 , and an adjustable shoulder nut 124 . in further embodiments , adjustable shoulder nut 124 further comprises an internal threaded region 126 , and a tapered , upwardly facing shoulder member 128 . according to one aspect of the invention , support posts 2 are installed with each of the adjustable shoulder nuts 124 set at the bottom of the adjustment stroke ; in other embodiments , however , the adjustable shoulder nuts 124 are set at predetermined positions other than at the bottom of the stroke , or even in random positions , depending upon the particular operational requirements of the drilling environment . in other embodiments , a tapered section 134 is provided at the top of adjustable nut 124 to allow wedges or shims to be dropped inside a space formed when a module is placed onto a post , thereby lending lateral support to the post as well as vertical support . in still other embodiments , one or more fluid receiving fittings 130 are provided at the top of the support post for receiving and circulating a heating or cooling fluid within a body portion of the post , and a threaded receiving member 132 is provided for attachment of a lifting means . in alternative embodiments , receiving member 132 is not threaded , and instead comprises a slip - toothed fastening assembly ; in still further embodiments , receiving member 132 comprises an inverted nut and bolt receiving assembly for receiving a lifting means that has been lowered from the deck surface disposed above . according to further examples of the invention , fig1 shows an adjustable nut that was initially set at a position higher than the bottom of the adjustment stroke , for example , near the middle of the adjustment stroke in order to build up a platform section disposed on a downward slope . in fig1 , adjustable shoulder nut 124 has been threaded up the support post to a higher position as a method of setting an upper shoulder 126 of the adjustable nut at the same elevation as the shoulders on neighboring posts . according to the example embodiment of fig1 , a plurality of interconnected modular platform sections 50 is provided , each of which is installed atop a plurality of support posts . according to a further embodiment , the lengths of the platform sections are elongated relative to their widths ; in a presently preferred embodiment , the lengths of the platform modules are elongated relative to their widths by a ratio of about 4 : 1 . for example , in one particular embodiment , each platform section is about 12 . 5 feet wide and about 50 feet long . in the depicted embodiment , sixteen such platform sections are combined to provide a substantially square deck surface that is about 100 feet in both length and width . according to a detailed embodiment , platform 52 is supported by twenty seven different support posts 54 , each of which engage various platform sections from beneath the platform . along the left side of platform section 60 is a beam member 62 , which provides bridging support between support posts 64 and 66 . along the right side of platform section 60 is another beam member 70 , which provides bridging support between support posts 72 and 74 . in one embodiment , the underside of platform section 80 is a flat plate and includes a plurality of stiffening members 82 ; in some embodiments , stiffening members 82 are not intended to be structural or load bearing members , and are instead designed to support an accumulation of liquids and effluent that usually develops on a drilling platform . according to one example embodiment , an interlocking method of securing the platform modules to one another permits disposition of but a single support post at each platform intersection , and adjacent platform modules are all supported by that single post . although the interior corners of each platform section are near to and supported by a single support post , the support post is not necessarily attached to each of the surrounding platform sections . in one embodiment , for example , platform sections are attached to the support posts in such a fashion as to provide greater support in the direction of a line between support post 64 and support post 66 ; in this embodiment , greater support would also be provided between support post 72 and support post 74 . in this configuration , however , only minimal support is provided in the direction from support post 64 to support post 72 , and from support post 66 to support post 74 , said minimal support deriving from the rigidity produced when adjoining portion of platform sections are interlocked rather than by attachment of the platform section to a support post . according to an example embodiment depicted in fig1 , a load placed anywhere on the individual deck sections will be supported initially by the deck surface 120 , which in turn transfers the weight load in the direction indicated by arrow 130 ( see fig1 ) toward beam sections 82 and 96 disposed beneath the deck . the weight of the load is then transmitted down the side beams in the direction of arrow 132 ( see fig1 ) toward the support posts , which in turn directs the weight into the surface of the tundra . according to a further embodiment , rectangular beam 82 is established by assembly of a plurality of interlocked platform modules disposed on a side 94 portion of platform section 80 ; likewise , opposed rectangular beam 96 is established by assembly of a plurality of interlocked platform modules disposed on another side 104 of platform section 80 . on top areas 110 and 111 of beam sections 82 and 96 , a deck section 120 is installed and then locked into place . in one example embodiment , deck section 120 provides direct support for the various equipment and supply packages loaded on top of the deck . according to another embodiment , beam sections 82 and 96 provide support in the direction of the support posts 64 and 72 shown in fig1 . in a further embodiment , deck section 120 comprises a composite structure having a top plate 122 and a bottom plate 124 , separated by a foam mixture 126 disposed in an interior region established within the platform modules . in one particular embodiment , foam mixture 126 is a polyurethane foam mixture that not only stabilizes and supports the structural integrity of the top and bottom plates , but also provides a compressive strength sufficient to support heavy equipment loads placed on top of the deck surface 120 . according to a further embodiment , the polyurethane foam mixture 126 also dampens the loud noises and structural vibrations typically created during drilling operations . turning now to methods and means of interlocking the platform modules , fig1 and 15 show a plurality of assembled modular platform sections similar to the embodiments described in fig1 and 13 . for example , the platform is supported by twenty - seven support posts 54 , which engage the various platform sections from underneath . along the one side of platform section 60 is a beam member 62 that provides bridging support between support posts 64 and 66 . along the other side of platform section 60 is another beam member 70 , which provides bridging support between support posts 72 and 74 . the bottom of platform section 80 is a flat plate and includes a plurality of stiffening members 82 , which are not intended to be structural or load bearing in nature other than having sufficient capacity to support an accumulation of fluids that build up during drilling operations . a single support post is disposed at each platform intersection , and the adjacent platform modules are all supported by that single post . while each platform section corner is near to and supported by a support post , the support post is not necessarily disposed in that platform section ; the corners of some of the platform sections are supported by only the interlocking connection members disposed therebetween . according to the example interlocking platform connection system shown in fig1 , a first platform section 60 is disposed adjacent to a second platform section 140 ; a first deck section 142 is installed over platform section 60 , and a second deck section 144 is installed over platform section 140 . according to certain embodiments , a fence member 152 projects upwardly from an upper surface 150 of platform section 60 . according to a further embodiment , upper surface 160 of platform section 140 has a hook 162 disposed over the fence member 152 . according to the example embodiment of fig1 , hook 162 is formed structurally integral with platform section 160 , and provides support for the side of platform section 160 ; in other embodiments , however , hook 162 is not formed structurally integral with platform section 160 , and is instead mechanically affixed to the system to provide support for the side of platform section 160 . according to the example embodiment of fig1 , a first platform section 60 is logically supported by at least four different support posts 64 , 66 , 72 and 74 . according to a further embodiment , however , a second platform section 160 is supported by only two additional support posts 162 and 164 , while support on the opposite side is achieved by means of a hooking member 163 engaged over a portion of fence member 152 shown in fig1 . according to a still further embodiment , platform section 170 is supported by only two additional support posts 172 and 174 , though platform section 170 also gains support from support posts 162 and 164 on the opposite side by means of the mentioned hook and fence member combination . according to a still further embodiment , additional platform sections 180 , 182 , 184 , 186 and 188 are successively installed , in each instance installation requiring only two additional support posts and an opposed , complementary hook and fence member combination to ensure a secure and reliable connection . similarly , platform section 190 employs two additional support posts 192 and 194 at the end of the platform section disposed furthest away from platform section 170 . however , platform section 190 gains additional support from attachment to support posts 164 and 174 , and also from a hook and fence member combination disposed at the end most proximate to platform section 170 . consequently , platform section 200 requires only a single additional support post 202 , provided said support post is employed in combination with a hook and fence member support means at each of intersections 204 and 206 . additional platform sections 210 , 212 , 214 , 216 , 218 and 220 will also require only a single additional support post each , again provided the configuration includes an appropriate hook and fence member combination on two of the sides disposed opposite the support post . turning now to other example methods and means for connecting platform sections together , fig1 - 21 again show a drilling platform comprised of a group 52 of platform sections that have been interconnected for support of equipment storage modules that will later be installed on top of various portions of the platform . as shown , the platform sections are supported by twenty - seven support posts 54 , which engage various platform sections from locations disposed beneath the platform . those of ordinary skill in the art , however , will appreciate that any number of platform and deck sections can be assembled into a single unitary whole ( or even several discrete modular platform units ), and any number of support posts can be employed to support the structure , depending on the various field requirements imposed by actual operating environments . those of ordinary skill in the art will also appreciate that by employing the example platform assembly methods described above , weight loads can be directed and distributed in virtually any direction along the platform , and additional interconnections between platform sections can be established to either support weight loads disposed on deck sections , or to otherwise lend stability and structural rigidity to the resulting platform system . referring now to the example embodiment of fig2 , a support post 2 is shown disposed near an intersection 230 of four interconnected platform modules 232 , 234 , 236 and 238 . moving out radially from intersection 230 , a plurality of connecting hooks 240 , 242 , 246 and 248 are disposed over complementary fence members 250 , 252 , 254 and 256 , so that the several associated platform sections are securely interconnected . the hook and fence member assemblies also serve to effectively seal the intersection 240 where the platform sections are joined , at least insofar as accumulated water and the like will easily pass from one platform section to another across body portions of the hook and fence locking assemblies . intersection 230 , however , is more problematic . for example , virtually any liquid can pass through the space formed at the center of the four - corner intersection , and then pass between platform sections and down onto the ground surface disposed below . according to one aspect of the invention , therefore , a sealing member is provided to close the space formed at intersection 230 , the seal generally being disposed on the top side portion of the intersection , although installation of the seal from the bottom side of the intersection 230 is also contemplated . the sealing member , which in this case is referred to as an x - seal because of its shape , extends in each of four directions at least as far as a series of sealing grooves 260 that have been cut into body portions of each of the associated fence members 250 , 252 , 254 and 256 . for example , as seen in fig2 , a platform sealing member 270 is dropped over a four - corner intersection where four assembled platform modules have been interconnected . the body of the seal is substantially in direct contact with body portions of the fence members 250 , 252 , 254 and 256 ( see fig2 ), and therefore also directs water or other accumulated fluids across away from the intersection 230 of the interconnected platform modules . since there is still a potential for dirty water or other fluids to land on top of a fence member and then seep underneath an end portion of one of the x - seals , a plurality of small grooves disposed in the fence members cut crossways across the fence members so that any fluid that would otherwise tend to run along the bottom of the x - seal will instead be diverted in another direction by means of fluid contact with any one of the series of small cut grooves 260 depicted in fig2 . according to an example of the invention shown in fig2 a and 24 b , an appropriate x - shaped seal member 270 is shown , which in some embodiments comprises a thin metal plate 274 equipped with a plurality of leg members 272 , which depend from and around various portion of thin plate 274 . in some embodiments , leg members 272 are formed structurally integral with thin plate 274 , though in other embodiments leg members 272 comprise a plurality of separate pieces ( e . g ., a number of small metal rectangles ) affixed to thin plate 274 using a known connection method , for example , welding the metal rectangles to the thin plate . as seen in fig2 , a further embodiment is provided wherein an outer perimeter of assembled platform modules is fitted with a safety fence 282 so that liquids that splash off the surface of the drilling platform will not pass over the sides of the platform and down onto the ground surface below . according to some embodiments , safety fence 280 comprises or retention plate 282 , which is either welded on or mechanically affixed to a body portion 284 of safety fence 280 . in other embodiments , retention plate 282 includes a portion having a double bend 284 that slips into and engages a top portion of platform section 288 at a predetermined location so as to establish the desired fluid retention fence 280 . according to still further embodiments , the presence of safety fence 280 causes splashing liquids to be diverted back toward the interior surfaces of the interconnected platform sections , though in one particular embodiment , re - directed fluid flow is allowed to drain into a container portion of a platform section by means of one or more drain holes 290 . in other embodiments , cable races are attached to the retention plates or , in further embodiments , to the platform perimeter . referring now to the example embodiments of fig2 a and 26 b , it will be understood that individual fluid waste retention fence members are necessarily going to be fabricated in advance at finite , predetermined lengths . according to one particular embodiment , for example , the fluid waste retention fence member measures about twelve and one - half feet long . according to an example method of practicing the invention , as successive fluid retention safety members are installed next to other pieces of the fence , cracks that form between the kick plates are sealed using one or more fence seals 300 . in certain embodiments , fence seal sections 300 are fastened to a waste retention member using known fastening means such as a screw or a nut and bolt assembly . in one particular embodiment , the fence seal 300 is clipped onto those portions of the fence disposed nearest the gaps formed between fence sections using one or more clip tabs 302 and 304 . in a further embodiment , fence seal 300 is clipped onto the safety fence by hooking each of clip tabs 302 and 304 over a top lip portion of the kick plate . according to a particular example embodiment , a vertical fence seal portion 300 is fabricated so that it is about the same height as the terminal vertical portion of the kick plate , so that water or other fluids are directed back toward the interconnected platform sections . referring now to the example embodiments of fig2 a and 27 b , a retaining fence gap sealing member 312 is provided , in which the sealing member further comprises an extension member disposed thereon that is similar in both nature and function to the previously discussed four - way seal , so that excess water that seeps along an interior surface of the fence seal will again be redirected to a region contained within the perimeter of the fence . according to a specific example embodiment , platform sections on which the fence members are affixed have a plurality of cut grooves disposed beneath the sealing member that further prevents seeping fluids from migrating down the sides of the platform sections . in the further embodiments of fig2 a and 28 b , a fence corner seal 320 is disposed so that the gap that forms between two sections of fence installed at comers of the platform is bridged . in practice , the corner seal functions similar to the other fence seals discussed above , except that the corner seal also engages multiple sections of the fence . in a presently preferred embodiment , each of the fence sections upon which the corner seal is installed is disposed at about a ninety - degree angle relative to the other . according to the example embodiment of fig2 , a number of assembled modular platform sections 50 are depicted following the installation of a plurality of deck sections atop upper portions of the platform sections . according to one embodiment , one or more manholes 54 is disposed at each end of the deck sections , except for platform section 56 , which has a shortened deck ( and thus a manhole 54 disposed at only one end ) due to the location of the platform &# 39 ; s wellhead cellar 61 . according to further embodiments , within a body portion of each of the deck sections is a utilities communication pipe 60 , which , in certain embodiments , is configured to run along an entire length ( or width ) of the platform section . according to one embodiment , utility pipe 60 has a predetermined number of regularly spaced junctions , permitting convenient access points for installation and maintenance of utilities related equipment ( e . g ., fiber optics bundles , electrical wiring , etc .). in other embodiments , utilities communication pipe 60 comprises a plurality of junctions disposed at irregularly spaced locations disposed along a length of the pipe . according to a specific example embodiment , after the disclosed arctic drilling platform has been fully assembled , communication pipes 60 ( and the various junctions and utility access points disposed thereupon ), serves as the framework for distribution of power and other utilities around the surface of the platform during drilling operations . according to a further embodiment , each of the deck sections are slightly greater in length than the utilities communication pipes contained within , so that sufficient room remains within the interior of the deck module to install one or more power boxes , water junctions , or utility cross - connections , near the terminal ends of the communication pipes . in various embodiments of the invention , one or more utilities communication pipes 60 are used to accommodate installation of electrical power lines , telephone lines , fiber optic connections , gas hoses , fuel lines , etc . as seen in the example embodiment of fig3 , a crawl space is disposed between the ends of deck sections 70 and 72 . as depicted , deck sections 70 and 72 are disposed atop platform sections 74 and 76 , though those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the deck sections can also be assembled in combination with other types of platform modules . according to a still further embodiment , deck sections are constructed by stacking one or more layers , wherein each layer further comprises one or more communication pipes . according to a presently preferred embodiment , there is a space or gap of about 12 inches disposed between innermost portions 78 and 80 of deck sections 70 and 72 ; the space or gap is disposed above the topmost portions of platform sections 74 and 76 , and below a manhole cover 82 laid on a top lip established by the end points of deck sections 70 and 72 . in further embodiments , pipes 84 and 86 extend into the deck in order to facilitate utilities communication . deck section 70 has an upper plate 88 and a lower plate 90 , each of which are usually formed from a metal or composite material of some type . for example , according to one embodiment , upper plate 88 and / or lower plate 90 are formed from an aluminum plate , though in other embodiments an aluminum alloy or other combination of materials is preferred . according to still further embodiments , an insulation material is installed in the space or gap established between the utilities communication pipes . for example , in one embodiment , polyurethane foam is placed into the space between the communications pipes to lend compressive resistance to the deck plate disposed above the crawl space . according to the example embodiment of fig3 , a utility junction 100 is disposed in proximity to utilities communication pipes 102 and 104 . the horizontal utility pipes intersect a vertical junction pipe 106 that has been cut to reflect the actual height of the space established between upper plate 88 and lower plate 90 . a drain hole 106 is opened in the lower plate 90 , so that utility lines and the like can be fed into and through the platform sections disposed below . on the top side of the deck section , a vertical pipe having a threaded engagement means 110 is prepared , so that utility lines can also be drawn out of the engagement means 110 and up into other modules affixed on top of the deck . according to a further embodiment , a plug is threaded into the threaded engagement means 110 when the portal is not in use , thereby providing a smooth deck surface that is substantially uninterrupted by open manholes . fig3 is a detailed view of a support post 50 according to the invention . in some embodiments , support post 50 is inserted into a post hole 52 that has been drilled into a ground surface . in other embodiments , support post 50 has an interior space 54 established for receiving a slurry 56 of water , sand and gravel . in still other embodiments , an external surface of the support post is smooth or flat . when the platform is assembled in a very cold environment , for example , a frozen tundra , slurry 56 will also freeze and lend additional stability and rigidity to support post 50 . according to further embodiments , a lower portion 60 of support post 50 has a spiral support fin 62 , and an upper post end 64 is configured to fit into a receiving socket 66 disposed in the bottom of platform section 68 . fig3 is a detailed view of an upper end 64 of the support post 50 shown in fig3 , further comprising a process fitting 70 that allows fluids to be pumped down into a conduit or pipe 80 disposed in a body portion of the support post 50 . according to one example embodiment , fluids pumped into pipe 80 travel to the bottom of support post 50 , and a return flow is established by directing accumulated fluid pressure toward a process fitting disposed in flanged member 72 . in other embodiments , support post 50 further comprises a plurality of threaded ports 74 , so that support post 50 can be installed using an attached padeye or other fitting device ( not shown ). according to the example embodiment of fig3 , a terminus portion of fluid transport pipe 80 extends downwardly from a body portion of support post 50 , and then exits through a reducer port 83 and spiral fin member 82 . according to a specific embodiment , spiral fin 82 is fabricated from two metal plates , viz ., a lower , rolling spiral plate 84 that extends substantially perpendicularly from an outer diameter 86 of lower pipe section 88 , and an upper , conical spiral plate 90 that extends downwardly at an angle of about thirty to forty five degrees . rolling spiral plate 84 and conical spiral plate 90 are joined together by , for example , a known welding or sintering process , so as to establish a hollow fluid transport space 92 disposed within spiral fin 82 . in other embodiments , the exterior surface of the support post is substantially smooth and the fluid transport space is located within an interior region of the support post . according to one example embodiment , a fluid solution is pumped downward through pipe 80 and into spiral fin 82 . the fluid circulates around the spiral fin 82 down to the bottom of the post 100 , and then vents into an internal bore 106 of support post 50 through transport hole 104 . the fluid solution then circulates back up the body of internal bore 106 . in this configuration , a liquid or gaseous medium can be pumped down the pipe 80 and around spiral fin 82 , and then back up the internal bore 106 of support post 50 to either cool or heat the ground surface area surrounding support post 50 . according to other embodiments , a very cold fluid or gas is pumped through pipe 80 into the body of the post , so as to ensure that the surrounding ground surface will remain firmly frozen . according to a further embodiment , however , a warm fluid or gas is instead pumped through pipe 80 in order to melt the ground surface around the support post , so that the support post can then be removed from its moorings and more easily retrieved when drilling operations are complete . according to a still further embodiment , the fluid transportation means is vented to a surrounding ground surface using jetting ports or the like in order to make removal of the support posts easier . according to one particular embodiment , a fluid such as a food - grade glycol , which has a freezing temperature well below the lowest anticipated temperature of the surrounding tundra , is employed to facilitate the aforementioned freezing steps . in case of an accidental spill , food - grade glycol is also bio - degradable , and thus will have only a limited impact on the surrounding ground surface . those of ordinary skill in the art , however , will appreciate that many other fluid solutions , for example , chilled air , heated air or hot steam , can be pumped through the support post 50 in order to carry out the aforementioned freezing and heating . on heavily weighted platforms , individual support posts often bear a heavy load . since in some embodiments the support posts are frozen into the surrounding ground surface using a slurry , there can be a tendency for the underlying ice to either shift or compact , thereby causing one or more of the posts to sink more deeply into the ground and destabilize the rest of the platform . in most cases , the sinking of a post is in proportion to the load it bears , and will vary from post to post . while it is anticipated that the incremental sinking of any individual post will usually have a negligible impact on the stability of the platform , those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that a mechanical adjustment will sometimes be required to bolster the structural support capacity of some sinking posts . according to the invention , there are at least two different effective methods of improving the support capacity of sinking posts . according to the embodiment shown in fig3 , for example , a platform and deck assembly 350 is supported by a support post 360 , wherein a jacking assembly 370 is disposed above a lift socket 365 located on a topmost portion of the support post 360 . as seen in the embodiment of fig3 , a hydraulic cylinder 375 is then extended down from the jacking assembly 370 until contact with the support post lifting socket 365 is established . according to some embodiments , the engagement means provided to ensure a reliable mechanical interface between cylinder head portion 380 and lifting socket 365 is a slip - toothed sprocket assembly . in other embodiments , the engagement means comprises a known fastener assembly , for example , a nut and bolt assembly . those of ordinary skill in the art , however , will recognize that virtually any type of engagement means could be used to hold the cylinder head 380 in place against the support post receiving socket 365 , so long as the engagement means is sufficient to reliably facilitate the secure attachment of cylinder head 380 to the top of the support post . in further embodiments , hydraulic cylinder 375 is shaped like a piston , and exerts a downward force against the head of the support post so as to engage the two members via the fastening means . according to still further embodiments , however , the hydraulic cylinder member 375 is a telescoping cylinder , so that successive , concentric portions of the cylinder are revealed as the cylinder is extended to engage with the support post lifting socket 365 , and the platform and deck assembly 350 are then lifted . as seen in the example embodiment of fig3 , once the platform and deck assembly 350 have been lifted off of the shoulder of adjustable nut 368 by means of attached jacking assembly 370 , adjustable nut 368 is relieved of its weight load and can then be height - adjusted without further disturbing the level or stability of the surrounding platform . as seen in the example embodiment shown in fig3 , after adjustable nut 368 has been re - adjusted to a desired setting , platform and deck assembly 350 is set back down onto a flanged receiving portion 369 of adjustable nut 368 by means of hydraulic cylinder 375 , and cylinder head 380 is unfastened or otherwise withdrawn from support post lifting socket 365 . as shown in the example embodiment of fig3 , after the desired platform height adjustment is completed , jacking assembly 370 can then be removed from the vicinity of support post 360 and used elsewhere on the platform if desired . as shown in the example embodiment of fig4 , platform and deck assembly 350 need not necessarily be lifted from above in order to relieve the weight load disposed on the support post 360 . for example , jacking assembly 390 can also be installed underneath the platform and deck assembly 350 , and then used to lift the platform off of the support post 360 by pushing a top surface of the cylinder against a bottom surface of the platform and deck assembly 350 and then driving the cylinder upward using the cylinder &# 39 ; s hydraulic system . in instances where the hydraulic cylinder is piston shaped , the stroke distance of the hydraulic cylinder effectively determines the extent of support post height adjustment that can be effected . however , in other embodiments , one or more cylinder retaining pins can also be disposed in - between the jacking assembly &# 39 ; s telescopic cylinder members in order to provide a standardized range of support post height adjustments . according to a particular embodiment , for example , a plurality of retaining pins is inserted through regularly spaced receiving holes formed in body portions of the inner , middle and outer telescopic cylinder members . as the cylinder progresses through a stroke cycle and retaining pins are inserted into the receiving holes , a basic height for the jack assembly is established at one of several predetermined elevations . according to a detailed example embodiment , a bottom jack assembly is positioned adjacent to a side portion of a platform in such a fashion that the jack &# 39 ; s hydraulic cylinder traverses a first portion of its stroke distance . a chain or other lifting means is then wrapped around the raised cylinder head , and the pins are removed from the cylinder &# 39 ; s telescopic body sections . when the cylinder is retracted , the telescopic sections are pulled back in and the pins are reinserted . the cylinder is again extended , and slack in the restraining chain is withdrawn , so that the height of the cylinder head is raised ; at that point , the cylinder head is held in place by only the shortened restraining chain . the pins are then pulled out of the receiving holes again , and the cylinder is retracted . as before , the telescopic cylinder members are raised to a higher position and then re - pinned , this process being repeated until the cylinder head has been raised to its desired height using only the hydraulic lift strength of the jack assembly . after the height of hydraulic cylinder head is basically adjusted , the jack assembly is slid into place under a desired portion of the platform , and the cylinder head is again extended to permit final adjustment of the height of the support posts . according to the further embodiment of fig4 , an installed support post 54 comprises a tube - like member 50 disposed through a body portion of a platform section 52 , wherein the support post 54 is inserted from below into a cylindrical interior space formed in post tube 50 . an adjustable nut 56 is disposed on a body portion of support post 54 so as to engage a bottom surface 58 of platform section 52 . according to some embodiments , engagement between adjustable nut 56 and platform bottom surface 58 further comprises an insulating member 60 . when the insulating member 60 is formed from a poorly conductive material such as , for example , delrin or uhmw polyethelene , the insulating member serves to establish an electrical ground between the steel adjusting nut 56 and the aluminum platform section 52 . according to other aspects of the invention , a tapered receiving member 62 disposed on an upper portion of adjustable nut 56 resides within tube member 50 after the support post is installed . a first chocking assembly 70 is then lowered down into the space formed between the tube member 50 and support post 54 so as to engage both the tapered receiving member 62 and an inner wall surface 78 of tube member 50 . in the particular embodiment depicted in fig4 , a lower wedge member 72 is disposed to engage the adjustable nut 56 at a lower location , and to support an additional tapered receiving section 74 disposed on a topmost portion of chocking assembly 70 . likewise , an upper wedge 76 is disposed to engage the topmost portion of tapered receiving section 74 and inner wall surface 78 of tube member 50 . fig4 is a top view of the support post head shown in fig4 . according to one example embodiment , several chocking assemblies 70 are disposed around a perimeter region of support post head 80 in order to hold the support post 54 securely in place and lend additional stability and structural rigidity to the system after installation is complete . for example , disposition of multiple chocking members 70 and 74 provides a fixed side distance between the support post and an interior surface of the platform section tube member , so that side loads ( e . g ., forces being delivered to the sides of the platform , such as strong winds ) will be uniformly absorbed across an entire cross - section of the support post portion installed within the tube member . since both top and bottom portions of the support post are engaged with interior surfaces of the tube member , the support post and tube member assembly is substantially fixed , and lends additional structural rigidity to the platform system . if , on the other hand , the support post is fixed at only the bottom of the tube member , a pivot - like connection between the support post and platform section results , and a high inertial moment established near the ground surface reduces stability of the assembled platform system . fig4 is a perspective view of the support post head shown in fig4 , wherein several of the design features described above with respect to fig4 are emphasized . turning now to other aspects of the invention , fig4 is a proposed platform floor plan in which the general arrangements of storage buildings and other necessary structures are depicted . care must be given to the layout and grouping of platform structures so that related equipment is strategically stored , safe and comfortable housing is available for platform personnel , and to ensure that the rig is in compliance with strict fire and safety codes . for example , according to specifications promulgated by the american petroleum institute ( e . g ., the api 500 specifications ), a five - foot radius around the bell of any drilling rig is considered a division one explosion environment , and all electrical equipment used in the area must be configured to accommodate the requirements associated with a class one division one area . most enclosed structures that have a door opening out to a division one environment are considered class one division two explosive environments , environments that , under the api regulations , are regulated nearly as restrictively as class one division one areas . in practice , virtually all electrical equipment used on the rig , including computers and telephones , must be reviewed for electrical explosion potential in order to comply with the mentioned industry regulations . in the example embodiment of fig4 , a driller &# 39 ; s doghouse 50 is disposed on one side of the drilling rig 52 , and a company man house 54 is disposed on an opposite side of the rig 52 . both the driller &# 39 ; s doghouse and the company man house have a picture window 56 and 58 , so that personnel can look onto the drilling floor 60 . it would also be desirable for both the driller &# 39 ; s doghouse and the company man house to have a doorway that permits personnel stationed in these offices to walk out onto the rig floor to perform work or conduct discussions regarding rig activities ; however , the presence of a doorway between the rig floor and either the driller &# 39 ; s doghouse or the company man house would cause these areas to be classified as division two areas , and since both the drillers and the company men often have need for telephones and portable computers and the like , most of which are not explosion - proofed , it has in the past been the case that convenient doors between the rig floor and the personnel stations are not present . as seen in the example embodiment of fig4 , in which a building structure from the floor plan of fig4 is isolated in greater detail , rig floor access difficulties are overcome by constructing a company man house 54 that is actually a combination of a company man room 70 and a computer and communications room 72 . in a substantially central portion of the company man house 54 , a door 80 opens into a small hallway 82 , rather than directly into the company man room 70 . according to one embodiment , the small hallway 82 passes straight through the company man house 54 and is fully opened to the environment on a side 84 opposite the door 80 . since door 80 opens into a hallway 82 that is open to the environment , hallway 82 becomes a non - classified area , and company men can use the telephones and computers provided in computer room 72 without conflicting with the industry regulations . turning now to various storage structures that are useful in a platform environment , for example , liquid storage platform sections , an embodiment of the invention depicted in fig4 and 47 comprises a platform section 50 that has a deck section 52 installed on top of the platform . in some embodiments , support foam 54 disposed within deck section 52 provides a layer of insulation at the top of the deck portion ; in a presently preferred embodiment , the layer of insulation is about six inches thick . a plurality of six - inch insulation members 56 have also been added to the ends , bottom , and both sides of the platform and deck sections , effectively making the storage module a large thermal container . in some embodiments , the floor of thermal container 52 further comprises an electric heating element 60 ; lying on top of the heating element is a balloon type tank or collapsible pillow tank 62 . in some embodiments , the balloon tank stores fresh water that can later be processed into either potable water or water suitable for use in showers and sinks . according to other embodiments , balloon tank 62 is used to store other liquids , for example , diesel fuel or well operation fluids . in further embodiments , a pump 70 is used to draw fluid out of the bladder tank prior to transfer of the fluid into other parts of the platform structure . in still further embodiments , pump 70 is used to draw liquids from other platform sections , and to pump the drawn fluids into the bladder tank through appropriate process connections 72 , for example , a metal pipe or durable plastic conduit connection . those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that there are usually a great many platform areas that are stacked high with relatively heavy platform modules and drilling equipment . however , there are also many other areas , for example , the deck sections beneath the crane , which are lightly loaded . by using one of the liquid storage bladder configurations , fluid loads can be maintained in platform sections that functionally serve as open deck spaces . the liquid storage bladders are also lighter than the steel tank storage modules that are presently known , and thus the total weight required to be supported is reduced according to the invention . most liquids suitable for storage in the disclosed bladder will tend to freeze at very low temperatures , for example , the very low temperatures that would be expected in arctic drilling environments . in the example embodiment of fig4 and 47 , problems associated with freezing fluids are overcome using one or more electric heaters disposed along the bottom of the bladder tank . according to further embodiments , however , one or more additional heating strips is applied directly to the bottom of the tank , or is instead applied to the bottom of an aluminum plate laid on the bottom of the platform section so that the bladder tank is disposed on top of the aluminum plate . the aluminum heating plates provide superior temperature distribution , and generally will not cause hot spots that can overheat a particular area of the bladder like other known methods of tank heating . according to further embodiments , hot air is circulated within the storage section to prevent the stored fluid from freezing ; in still other embodiments , electric heaters are disposed within the fluid so that warm water is continuously circulated through the storage tank . fig4 is a cross - sectional view of a wellhead cellar according to one aspect of the invention , in which an outer portion of the wellhead cellar is comprised of multiple layers , for example , an inner skin and an outer skin , with two - part polyurethane foam insulation disposed between the inner and outer skins . in the bottom of the wellhead cellar , there are at least two levels of seals provided to ensure the unit is as environmentally secure as possible and that the ground surface is protected from inadvertent spills . the disclosed wellhead cellar also permits the entire drilling operation to be carried out without disturbing any of the ground surface except for the production hole . as seen in the example embodiment of fig4 , the wellhead center cellar further comprises additional sets of casing and the like suitable for use in additional wellbores . according to further embodiments of the invention , the backup casings are also sealed within the wellhead cellar to prevent leakage , and to maintain the environmental integrity of the drilling operation . in a further embodiment , a ladder or stairs provide access to personnel required to move into and out of the wellhead cellar . as seen in the example embodiment of fig5 , a wellhead cellar sealing assembly engages an outermost stream of production casing . the seals comprise an inner and outer skin , with polyurethane foam disposed in - between . according to some embodiments , each of the seals are energized using bolts attached by known fasteners in order to provide a secure and reliable sealing assembly for the protection of wellhead . other means for energizing the seals include introduction of low pressure air feeds , for example , an air feed having about 2 psi , so that the seals are held fast after attachment by means of compressive pressure or the use of a sealant such as foam . fig5 is a post hole in which a platform support post 50 is disposed according to further aspects of the invention . the support post 50 has an adjustable nut 56 for making fine adjustments to the level of the platform 52 disposed thereon , and a fluid transfer means 58 that permits fluid to be pumped from the platform down inside the body of the support post 52 for heating or cooling operations . a lower end 60 of support post 50 is contoured to permit pumped fluids to flow toward the bottom of the support post for full , uniform heating of the support post . at the lower end of the support post 50 , a smaller diameter section 62 is for engagement with an extension member . as seen in the example embodiment of fig5 , an adaptor 70 useful for adding an extension onto the bottom of a support post is provided . according to some embodiments , adaptor 70 has an internal bore 72 sized to engage a smaller diameter section 62 of the bottom of support post 50 . according to certain embodiments , one or more fastening bolts 74 are also provided ; in a particular example embodiment , the fastening bolts 74 are disposed at 90 degree intervals around the circumference of the device , and engage and lock onto the bottom of the support post 50 . disposed on a bottom portion of the adapter 70 is an extension receiving member 76 , sized to engage a piece of extension pipe that is added to the bottom of the adapter 70 . fig5 shows the adaptor 70 of fig5 , with the mentioned extension pipe section 80 attached thereto . according to one aspect of the invention , the extension member 80 is welded onto a bottom portion of the extension receiving member 76 , though in other embodiments any known fastening means will suffice so long as the connection between the extension member 80 and the extension receiving member 76 is secure and dependable . for example , certain embodiments use shear pins or the like to secure the extension member and the extension receiving member so that the connection will break apart when a predefined amount of force is applied . as seen in the embodiment of fig5 , a bottom portion of support post 50 has a lower end 60 sized so as to engage within an interior surface of extension receiving member 72 ( see fig5 ). in the embodiment of fig5 , the support post has an extension member added , with the outer surface of lower end 60 being attached to the extension receiving member 72 using a plurality of fastening bolts 74 . according to the further embodiment of fig5 , a post hole 100 is depicted in which a platform support post is disposed . extension member 84 has already been friction - locked to a bottom end of the support post . after the support post is inserted into the post hole , a slurry of water , sand and gravel is added to freeze the support post in place . at this point , the support post is ready for supporting the raised load for which it was designed . referring now to the example embodiment of fig5 , the post hole shown in fig5 is depicted after removal of the support post from the post hole . according to some embodiments , the support post is heated using circulated warm fluid so as to unfreeze the post from the surrounding ground formation . the plurality of bolts used to fasten the extension member to the extension receiving member are then removed or sheared , so that the support post can in turn be removed from the adapter and extension member . according to one embodiment , the adapter and extension member remain in the ground afterward , buried well beneath the surface of the surrounding ground formation . in some embodiments , the adapter and extension member are left in the ground about fifteen to twenty feet beneath the ground surface . in some embodiments , the adapter and extension are forever abandoned , and the post hole is filled in or covered over so that only minimal signs of the drilling operation are imprinted on the surrounding ground surface . however , in other embodiments , the adapter and extension member assembly are re - used whenever production from the site is again desired , and thus the post hole is not filled in or covered over . according to still further embodiments , the adapter and extension member assembly are abandoned , and the upper portion of the post hole is refilled with a slurry of sand and ice . in still other embodiments , the post hole is re - filled with a mixture of tundra and ice , and thus the former drilling site cannot easily be discerned from the surrounding tundra after operations have been completed and the platform has been removed . the foregoing specification is provided for illustrative purposes only , and is not intended to describe all possible aspects of the present invention . moreover , while the invention has been shown and described in detail with respect to several exemplary embodiments , those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that minor changes to the description , and various other modifications , omissions and additions may also be made without departing from either the spirit or scope thereof .	4
in carrying out my invention i provide a meat cutting machine that includes a frame , indicated generally at a , and a housing b , for an endless bandsaw c , see fig1 . the bandsaw housing has rounded ends with a recess 1 in its upper horizontal portion across which the upper reach 2 of the bandsaw extends and it travels along a horizontal plane , see fig2 and 11 . i will first describe how the endless bandsaw is mounted and operated by a motor before setting forth how the bulk meat is cut into slices . fig2 illustrates the endless bandsaw c , by dash lines , the saw blade being passed around a drive wheel d , and an adjustable driven wheel e . in fig1 i show an electric motor f , connected to a pulley 2 by a belt 3 . then in fig1 , the pulley 2 is mounted on a shaft 4 and the drive wheel d , is keyed to this shaft and is enclosed in the bandsaw housing b . the driven or idler wheel e , is spring biased so as to constantly apply the proper tension on the endless bandsaw c , at all times . in addition the driven wheel e can be moved to free the bandsaw portion engaging it or for mounting a new bandsaw in case the old one becomes dull or breaks . fig1 , 11 and 12 illustrate the adjustable spring biased bandsaw receiving wheel e . the shaft 5 on which the wheel e freely revolves , is carried by a member 6 that is slidably received in a horizontal guide 7 which positioned within the bandsaw housing and is secured to one wall thereof . a compression spring 8 yieldingly urges the member 6 to the right in fig1 , and with it the shaft 5 and the wheel e so that the wheel will exert a continuing yielding force in maintaining the bandsaw c taught at all times . i provide manually operated means for moving the wheel e to the left in fig1 when the operator wishes to inspect the bandsaw or to substitute a new one for a dull or broken bandsaw . an arm 9 is pivotally mounted within the bandsaw housing b , at 10 and it is also pivotally connected to the member 6 at 11 . a link 12 has one end pivoted to the arm at 13 and its other end is pivoted at 14 to a hand operated lever 15 which in turn is pivotally connected at 16 to a wall of the bandsaw housing . when the hand lever 15 is in the full line position shown in fig1 , the compression spring 8 will yieldingly urge the member 6 and wheel e to the right to maintain a constant yielding pressure on the endless bandsaw c . when the lever 15 is swung to the left into the dot - dash line position , the link 12 and arm 9 will be moved and will move the member 6 and wheel e to the left to free the bandsaw from the wheel . the arm 9 has a slot in which the pivot pin slides during the swinging of the hand lever 15 . the freeing of the bandsaw c from the wheel e permits the bandsaw to be removed from both wheels d , and e , and a new bandsaw substituted . i will now describe the stationary horizontal platform and the vertically adjustable horizontal platform for supporting the bulk meat items which are to be cut into slices as these bulk meat items are moved in a circular horizontal path by a carousel over both platforms so that each item of bulk meat will have a slice cut therefrom as it is moved past the upper horizontal reach of the bandsaw . after the structure of the carousel with its bulk meat engaging pairs of jaws will be described . fig1 illustrates the horizontal stationary platform g , and the vertically adjustable horizontal platform h , about ready to be attached to the machine . the stationary platform g , is in the shape of an arcuate sector and it is attachable to the horizontal supporting member 17 that in turn projects from an upright 18 of the main frame a . fig2 shows a side elevation and fig5 shows a plan view of the platform g when actually mounted on the support 17 . the radial edge 19 of the platform g , is disposed adjacent to the upper horizontal reach of the bandsaw c , and the other radial edge 20 is disposed adjacent to the radial edge 21 of the adjustable platform h when the latter is mounted on the machine in a manner which will be described shortly . also note from fig5 that the radial edge 22 of the arcuate - shaped platform h , is placed close to the bandsaw and that both platforms form a complete circular support for the bulk meat items that are moved over the two platforms during the cutting of the meat into slices . the platforms support the meat items . fig1 and 4 illustrate the vertically movable support for the adjustable platform h . the frame a has a vertically extending hollow casing j that is non - circular in horizontal cross section and is open at its top , see the vertical section of fig4 and the dotted plan view in fig5 . a vertically movable member k , of the same cross sectional shape as the horizontal inner area of the casing j , is slidably mounted in the casing j . i show means for raising or lowering the member k , in the casing and this includes a roller 23 mounted at the bottom of the member k , and resting on an arm 24 which in turn is operatively connected at 25 to the lower end of a screw shaft 26 . the arm 24 fulcrums on a roller 27 and it extends through an opening in the casing and underlies the roller 23 . the screw shaft 26 is received in a threaded bearing 28 and the upper end of the shaft has a handle 29 , see also fig3 by means of which the screw shaft 26 may be rotated for raising or lowering the member k . the screw shaft 26 could be operated by a reversible electric motor , not shown , and controlled by a switch , not shown . i show one operative mechanism for raising and lowering the member k . the vertically adjustable platform h , is removably secured and supported by the top of the member k . in fig4 the top of the member k is shown with a pair of spaced apart and horizontally arranged grooves 30 . the underside of the adjustable platform h , has a supporting member 31 with a recess slidably receiving the top of the member k , and this supporting member has inwardly extending flanges 33 arranged on opposite sides of the recess 32 and slidably received in the grooves 30 . spring biased pins 34 , carried by the member 31 , enter aligned openings in the top of the member k when the adjustable platform is mounted in its proper position on the member k . the top plan view of the machine shown in fig5 illustrates the proper position of the vertically adjustable platform h when it is secured to the top of the member k , and is supported by it . as already stated , the two arcuate shaped platforms g and h provide a complete circular support for the bulk meat items l as they are moved in a circular path over the platforms by the carousel which in turn will successively move the bulk meat items past the upper reach of the bandsaw blade c for cutting slices from the bulk meat . the member k can be moved vertically in an up and down direction , as indicated by the arrows 35 in fig4 when the screw shaft 26 is rotated in either one of two directions by the handle 29 , as shown by the arcuate arrows 36 . fig2 and 3 , and the schematic showing of fig6 a , illustrate the position of the adjustable platform h , as being slightly lower in elevation than that of the stationary platform g . it is this difference in the vertical spacing between the levels of the two platforms which determines the thickness of the slices of meat to be cut from the bulk meat items by the bandsaw c , as the carousel moves them past the bandsaw . i will now describe the carousel which is indicated generally at m , in fig1 , 5 , 6 , 6a , 7 , 8 and 9 . the carousel has a central hub 37 , see especially fig1 , 8 and 9 . the inner cylindrical surface of the hub has longitudinally extending and diametrically opposed grooves 38 therein for receiving mating keys 39 that project outwardly from a drive shaft 40 , see fig8 . the drive shaft has a reduced cylindrical and integral portion that has a sprocket 41 keyed thereto and a further reduced portion which is received in a thrust bearing 41 mounted in the upper horizontal portion of the upright 18 . the drive shaft 40 is held against vertical displacement with respect to the horizontal portion of the upright 18 by a washer and a split ring , the washer being held against the thrust bearing 41 &# 39 ; and the upright 18 . it is obvious that drive shaft 40 could be supported on the upright 18 in any manner desired . in fig3 i illustrate how the drive shaft 40 for the carousel m is operatively connected to the electric motor f . the sprocket 41 is keyed to the shaft 40 , see also fig7 and 9 , and a sprocket chain 42 connects the sprocket 41 to a drive sprocket 43 that is keyed to a vertically extending shaft 44 . the lower end of the shaft 44 is connected to an air - controlled clutch 45 . this air clutch is a manufactured item which is operated by air pressure working on a clutch disc , not shown . the clutch engages and connects the shaft 44 to a rotating shaft 46 when air pressure is applied to the clutch and releases when the air pressure is cut off . an air clutch control lever is schematically shown at 47 mounted on the control station 48 , see fig1 and 3 for controlling the operation of the air clutch 45 . the shaft 46 is rotated by a gear reduction mechanism housed within a casing 49 shown in fig3 and supported by the upright 18 . a variable driven pulley 50 is mounted on the shaft which drives the gear reduction mechanism 49 and an endless belt 51 interconnects the pulley 50 with a drive variable pulley 52 which in turn is mounted on the shaft for the motor f . an operation of the motor and the actuation of the air clutch 45 will cause the shaft 40 to be rotated at the desired speed for rotating the carousel m . the electric motor may be equipped with a speed control for causing the carousel to rotate at the desired speed . referring to fig5 and 7 to 9 , inclusive , the details of the carousel m , are illustrated in these figures . the central hub 37 is provided with a plurality of outwardly extending clevises 53 which are equally spaced about the hub . fig7 shows five of these clevises and different hubs 37 could be substituted having different numbers of clevises , this depending upon the number of pairs of jaws required for engaging with the items of bulk meat l . each clevis 53 has a socket 54 pivotally secured thereto at 55 . it will be seen from fig8 and 9 that each clevis 53 has a base portion 56 that extends beyond the clevis and is provided with a transversely extending rib 57 and that each socket is u - shaped in cross section with the sides of the clevis abutting its associate base . a plurality of arms n , are removable received in the sockets 54 and each arm is non - circular in cross section and is received in a similarly shaped non - circular recess in the socket so that the arm cannot rotate on its own longitudinal axis . also in fig8 and 9 , i illustrate each arm n , as having a transversely extending groove 58 on its undersurface that is designed to receive the rib 57 when the arm is inserted into the socket 54 and the groove 58 registers with the rib 57 when the socket is swung from its open position , shown in fig9 into its closed position , as shown in fig8 . the socket 54 in cross section is in the shape of an inverted u , and its two side walls have recesses 59 in their lower edges which receive the adjacent portions of the rib 57 when the socket is in its closed position . in this manner the radially extending arms n , are removably secured in position and will be swung in a circle when the shaft 40 and the hub 37 are rotated . i will now describe the meat - engaging pair of jaws which are carried by each arm n , see fig1 , 5 and 6 . a bracket 60 is secured to each arm and supports a jaw p of the shape shown in fig5 and 6 . the wall of the jaw extends vertically and it is shaped in horizontal cross section so as to partially enclose the bulk meat l . the top portion of the jaw is flared outwardly at 61 &# 39 ; so as to guide the bulk meat l toward its proper position in the jaw interior when an operator feeds the bulk meat between the jaw p , and its cooperating spring - biased jaw q which will now be described . the bottom of the bulk meat l will either rest upon the platform g , or the platform h , this depending upon the position of the arm n . the spring - biased jaw q , is designed to contact the bulk meat l , and yieldingly hold it in the jaw p while permitting the weight of the meat to bring the bottom of the meat into slidable contact with either one of the two platforms g and h . the jaw q , is attached to one end of a lever 61 that in turn is pivoted at 62 to the arm n , see fig5 and 6 . the other end of the lever 61 has a tension spring 63 attached thereto and the other end of the spring is connected to a bracket 64 mounted on the arm n . the tension exerted by the spring 63 on one end of the lever 61 will cause the lever to swing the jaw q toward the jaw p , and thus yieldingly engage with the bulk meat l to move it over the surfaces of the two platforms g and h , while still permitting the weight of the bulk meat to cause the bottom of the meat to rest upon and slide over the platforms . the top of the spring - biased jaw q , is outwardly flared at 65 , as clearly shown in fig6 . the jaw q , is held in a vertical position and it is angularly shaped in horizontal cross section . the outwardly flared tops 61 and 65 of the two cooperating jaws p , and q act as a funnel to guide the bulk meat between the two jaws when the operator places the bulk meat above the outwardly flared portions and then lowers the meat until the bottom of the meat l rests upon the stationary platform g . the carousel m rotates in a clockwise direction as indicated by the arrow 66 in fig5 . the operator places the bulk meat items l between the pairs of jaws p , and q , as the arms n of the carousel m move clockwise over the stationary platform g . the adjustable platform h , has previously been adjusted vertically with respect to the stationary platform g , by operating the handle 29 on the control station 48 . the schematic showing in fig6 a illustrates the vertical distance between the stationary platform g , and the adjustable platform h . this vertical spacing betwen the two platforms is also indicated at 67 , in fig2 as lying between the two horizontal double dash lines , the line 68 representing the top of the stationary platform g , and the line 69 , representing the top of the adjustable platform h . the schematic showing in fig6 a also shows the upper reach of the bandsaw blade c as lying in the same plane as the top of the stationary platform g . the pair of jaws p and q have moved the bulk meat l over the adjustable platform h , in the direction of the arrow 70 until the portion of meat extending below the bottoms of the jaws comes into contact with the bandsaw blade . a slice 71 of meat is being cut from the bulk meat l . this action takes place after the bulk meat has been placed between a pair of jaws p and q and the carousel arm n has swung clockwise in fig5 to move the bulkmeat off from the stationary platform g and onto the adjustable platform h . at the edge 22 of the platform h , the bulkmeat is brought into contact with the saw blade c and a slice 71 of meat of the desired thickness is severed from the bulk meat l , and drops upon a downwardly inclined endless conveyor indicated generally at r , in fig6 a and also in fig1 and 3 . a bracket 72 connects the conveyor r to the main frame a . when cutting t - bone steaks from bulk meat l , the bone edge 73 is preferably placed against the back of the jaw p . it is this jaw that withstands the thrust of the saw blade c , as it cuts a t - bone steak 71 from the meat . the bone 73 extends throughout the length of the bulk meat l and the saw blade c cuts the bone at right angles to its length . this assures that the slices 71 of meat will all be of uniform thickness . the endless conveyor r can deliver the meat slices into a receiving bin , not shown . if smaller cuts of meat are desired from the bulk meat , the carousel m may be changed to one having more radially extending arms n and pairs of jaws p and q . the spring - biased jaw q will automatically adjust to the size of the bulk meat l received between the two jaws . the device can be started operating by pushing the starting switch 74 on the control station 48 , see fig1 and can be stopped by pushing the stop switch 75 . this will start the bandsaw c operating . the rotation of the carousel m , is controlled by actuating the lever 47 on the control station 48 which in turn causes the air clutch 45 , in fig3 to operatively connect the motor f to the carousel m for causing the latter to rotate clockwise and successively move the bulk meat items l past the saw blade for cutting slices from the meat . the uniform movement of the pairs of meat - holding jaws p and q past the cutting saw blade c will apply even and a constant pressure against the blade which will result in a uniform cut . it should be noted that the clockwise rotation of the carousel m , when looking at fig5 will cause the jaws p to move the bulk meat items l over both platforms g , and h . i do not depend on the spring - biased jaws q to move the bulk meat items . their function is to merely yieldingly maintain the bulk meat items in the jaws p . the weight of the bulk meat items l , is sufficient to cause them to move downwardly between the jaws after each slice has been cut from the meat . at all times the platforms g , and h support the bulk meat items as they are moved thereover by the carousel . my machine will eliminate the hand meat cutting from a bulk meat l . better quality and more uniform cuts of meat will result . the cutting of meat by the machine will be far more rapid than can be accomplished by hand cutting . the two platforms g and h can be quickly removed from the machine for cleaning , sanitizing or for gaining access to the operating parts of the machine . a single motor f , is used for operating the bandsaw c as well as the carousel m . the carousel m may be hand operated if desired and this can be done when the air clutch 45 is disengaged . broken or dull sawblades c can be quickly released by actuating the lever 15 and a new blade substituted . this machine will also be safe to operate . the hand will not come near the blade at all , as is the case when cutting the meat by hand .	1
as is illustrated in fig1 the circuit configuration shows that the keyboard interfacing section of the typical conventional computer system , such as of a × 86 - based ibm - compatible personal computer , is a keyboard controller interface ( kbci ) 12 that interfaces between the core logic of the computer system and its external keyboard unit ( kb ) 20 . this is a design suitable for the mainboard or motherboard ( mb ) 10 of the modern computer system unit to interface with its physically separate keyboard unit 20 . the keyboard unit 20 has a microcontroller ( not shown in the drawing ) installed internally . due to the fact that a normal keyboard unit is only required to handle human typing inputs , therefore , the processing power of the microcontroller installed in the keyboard unit need not be excessive . typically , serial communication is used to establish connection between the mainboard 10 of the system unit and the keyboard unit 20 in a computer system . for instance , in the case of the depicted prior - art circuitry example of fig1 a pair of signals kbdata and kbclk are used to establish the connection between the keyboard unit 20 and the keyboard controller 12 of the motherboard 10 in the system unit . such serial communication fulfills the need for handling human typing inputs well . the use of less - powerful microcontroller and serial communication channels is beneficial in cost reduction of the entire computer system . in the depicted conventional computer system of fig1 both power v dd and ground gnd paths are also provided in addition to the kbdata and kbclk signals . in order to avoid radio frequency interference , this pair of power supply is normally provided to the keyboard unit 20 via proper isolation . in the case of the circuitry of fig1 the keyboard controller 12 provides this power to the external keyboard unit 20 . when compared to the system logic circuitry of the conventional computer systems , the security control apparatus of the invention for the computer power supply subsystem may be an independent circuitry that can be added to the typical computer system of fig1 . in a preferred embodiment of the invention , this security control apparatus can be inserted between the external keyboard unit 20 and the keyboard controller 12 of the motherboard 10 , while tapping into the signal paths connecting the two together . a block diagram of the embodiment of such an implementation can be seen in fig2 . as illustrated , the security control apparatus 40 constructed based on an embodiment of the invention can be incorporated into the logic circuitry of a computer system and interacts with the keyboard controller 12 of the motherboard 10 , the external keyboard unit 20 , as well as the power supply unit ( psu ) 30 . fig2 depicts the configuration of such an implementation . as illustrated in the drawing , the security control apparatus 40 embodying the invention may itself be an independent circuit module that can be used to intercept the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk communicating between the external keyboard unit 20 and the keyboard controller 12 of the computer motherboard 10 . the security control apparatus 40 can be monitoring the signal communication conducted between the two functional blocks to see if any user , either authorized or not , has depressed on the keyboard 20 with a string of keystrokes that conform to the valid password . in one preferred embodiment of the invention , when the computer is turned off , the security control apparatus 40 still maintains powered on by the power supply unit 30 , enjoying the necessary power source for implementing its designed security functionality . in the case of an atx motherboard , the security control apparatus 40 of the invention may be powered by the 5vsb power source when the system is in the power - down condition . the 5vsb power source of the atx can provide sufficient electric current for the operation of the apparatus 40 in order to monitor the keystrokes at the keyboard 20 when the system is powered off . meanwhile , the power supply unit 30 is also required to supply sufficient power to the external keyboard unit 20 for the keystroke scanning circuitry to operate under control of the keyboard microcontroller . as a user , either the rightful one or anyone trying to break into the computer system , depresses keystrokes over the external keyboard 20 , trying to input to the computer system a string of characters conforming to the preset password , the security control apparatus 40 can be monitoring the depressed keystrokes and compare them with the pre - stored password . if the result of the comparison between the stored password and the input keystrokes is positive , an enabling signal can be generated by the security control apparatus 40 , so as to turn on the power supply unit 30 , which then initiates and brings up the entire computer system . once the power supply unit 30 is turned on , the computer system may proceed with the normal boot up sequence so that the computer may function normally . for example , under the specification of the atx , when the security control apparatus 40 determines a keystroke string input is a valid password , the enabling signal generated by the apparatus 40 may be tied to the ps - on input in the atx power supply unit 30 . as persons skilled in the art may well be aware , a logically positive , i . e ., logically low - level , signal sent over to the ps - on input of an atx power supply 30 turns on the power supply unit which then powers up the computer system . on the other hand , if the security control apparatus 40 determines that the depressed password keystrokes are not valid , the ps - on input to the atx power supply 30 is then maintained at the logically negative status . the logical high - level signal maintains the atx power supply unit 30 at its power - off status . in this case , except the external keyboard unit 20 and the security control apparatus 40 , the entire computer system , including the cpu , the disk subsystem , and even the keyboard controller 12 in the motherboard 10 are all maintained off . in other words , regardless of whatever and how many times the intruder tries on the external keyboard unit 20 of the computer system , the power supply unit 30 is kept on the powered down status so long as the correct password is not given . since the power supply unit 30 is maintained off , vital components of the computer system , in particular the delicate and relatively vulnerable disk subsystem , will not be repeatedly powered up and then down in a rapid manner during the process of the repeated password guessing session . possibilities of damages to the computer components as a result of the rapid power - on and - off cycles may thus be virtually avoided . in a preferred embodiment , the security control apparatus 40 of the invention may further include the generation of another control signal sw that can be relayed to the keyboard controller 12 of the motherboard 10 . when the computer system is under the power - down status , this signal allows the security control apparatus 40 to keep on intercepting the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk for monitoring the validity of the password input , if any is depressed on the keyboard 20 . on the other hand , when the computer system is powered on successfully ( i . e ., via correct input of valid password ), the control signal sw can be used to return the normal flow of the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk to the keyboard controller 12 and the external keyboard unit 20 , as is normal in the case of a conventional computer system . it should , however , be noticed that as the security control apparatus 40 is constantly monitoring the key - depressing status over the external keyboard unit 20 while the computer system is turned off , power supply v kb to the keyboard unit 20 , as is in the case of fig2 is supplied by the standby power 5vsb of the atx power supply unit 30 . this is necessary as the main 5 - volt supply v dd of an atx during the master off state is cut off . the standby 5 - volt power , 5vsb , however , maintains active during the master off status and is able to provide a specified driving capacity . after the normal power - on of the computer system , power to the external keyboard unit can be switch from the standby power 5vsb to the master power v dd . if , however , the external keyboard unit remains to be powered by the standby power after the normal boot up of the computer system , it is also feasible as well . a preferred embodiment of the circuitry for the security control apparatus of the invention is examined below . fig3 is a block diagram showing the circuitry configuration of the security control apparatus in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention . as is illustrated in the drawing , the apparatus generally includes a keyboard input data decoder ( kbdec ) 41 , a first - in first - out ( fifo ) buffer 42 , a password memory ( pwm ) 43 , a compare unit ( cl ) 44 , a keyboard intercept unit ( kbil ) 45 , and a power supply control unit ( pscl ) 46 . first of all , the keyboard intercept unit 45 generates a keyboard signal intercept control signal sw based on the power - up and - down condition of the computer system . in a preferred embodiment , the keyboard intercept unit 45 can be a logic circuit that simply generates a logic signal sw with reversing logical states to represent the power - on and - off status of the computer system respectively . when the computer system is in its powered off status , the sw signal with one logical state can be used to control the interception of the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk for monitoring . on the other hand , when the computer system is in its powered on status , the sw signal with a reversed logical state can be used to return the normal keyboard signal communication between the external keyboard unit 20 and the keyboard controller 12 of the motherboard 10 , as is depicted in the block diagram of fig2 . for example , in the preferred embodiment , one three - state buffer can be used for each of the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk to facilitate the control of whether or not to intercept this pair of signals between the external keyboard unit 20 and the keyboard controller 12 of the computer system motherboards 10 . fig4 illustrates a schematic diagram showing the circuitry configuration of the security control apparatus in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the invention . the inventive apparatus intercepts the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk in order to determine whether or not a valid password to bring up the computer system is received in the system . as shown in the drawing , the keyboard controller interface 12 includes a typical microcontroller 120 , which , in the typical ibm - compatible systems , may be an intel 8042 / 8048 8 - bit microcontroller or the equivalent . in the keyboard controller interface 12 of the ibm - compatible systems , the microcontroller 120 that controls the interface has each of the p27 and p26 ports thereof output the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk via an open - collector buffer respectively . in a computer system employing the security control apparatus of the invention , these two open - collector buffers can be replaced by a pair of three - state buffers 121 and 122 respectively . as is illustrated in fig4 the two three - state buffers 121 and 122 in the preferred embodiment may be powered by the same power source v kb that powers the external keyboard unit 20 . this is because these two buffers must remain active together with the external keyboard itself . when the computer system is powered down , keyboard intercept unit 45 of the security control apparatus 40 generates a control signal sw that has a logical low level . as the three - state buffers 121 and 122 employed in the preferred embodiment depicted in fig4 have logical positive enable input control , therefore , a logical low - level control signal sw brings both buffers to the high - impedance turned - off state . under such a situation , the circuitry behind the input terminal of the buffers can be considered to be in virtually cut off from the keyboard signal lines kbdata and kbclk respectively . on the other hand , when the computer system is powered up as a result of correct password entry , the keyboard intercept unit 45 generates a corresponding control signal sw at its logical high status . this version of the control signal sw effectively connects p27 and p26 ports of the microcontroller 120 to the external keyboard units 20 . the connection is via the pair of activated three - state buffers 121 and 122 at the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk respectively . this effectively establishes the normal electrical signal connection between the external keyboard unit 20 and the motherboard 10 of the computer system . thus , in the preferred embodiment described above , the keyboard intercept unit 45 may be replaced simply by the main 5 - volt power source v dd of the power supply unit 30 . in other words , output enable control inputs of the two three - state buffers 121 and 122 for the keyboard interface can be tied directly , or via a properly selected pull - up resistor , to the v dd . then , referring again to fig3 as the computer system is brought into the power - down state , the keyboard intercept unit 45 may be able to intercept and switch the keyboard signals kbdata and kbclk into the security control apparatus 40 . the intercepted keyboard signals may thus be sent directly to the keyboard input data decoder 41 for decoding . the decoder 41 may then convert the received alphanumeric characters as represented by the keyboard signals into the standard codes used in the computer system one after the other . these converted codes representing the entered keystrokes are then sent to the first - in first - out buffer 42 for storage in a predetermined data format and awaits further processing . on the other hand , through proper operation procedures conducted in advance , the designated password can be stored in the password memory 43 . in a preferred embodiment of the invention , this password memory 43 may be a non - volatile random - access memory ( nvram ) device that can maintain its stored information permanently after the removal of power . or , in the case of an ibm - compatible computer , the password memory 43 may also be a designated memory space in the cmos memory used for maintaining information that records the computer system hardware configuration . as another embodiment , the password memory 43 may also be a simple static random - access memory ( sram ) that has a back - up battery to maintain its memory content after the computer system is powered down . in the process of activating the computer system power supply via password entry , the password may be concluded by , for example , a depress on the return key over the keyboard . in other words , the return key , which is never a key allowed for the password , may be used to signify the end of a password character string entry . upon receiving this signifying key signal , a firmware routine of the computer system may then be initiated to let the compare unit 44 load and compare the input password entry with the pre - stored valid password from the first - in first - out buffer 42 and the password memory 43 respectively . as a result of the comparison , the compare unit 44 generates a password match signal pm , which may then be relayed to the power supply control unit 46 . based on the logical state of the password match signal pm , the power supply control unit 46 generates a power supply control signal that can be used to directly interface and control the power supply unit of the computer system . for instance , in the case of an atx power supply , this generated power supply control signal may be the logically negative ps - on signal complying to the atx specification which may be tied directly to the ps - on input of the atx power supply . in the case of the atx power supply , a logical high - level signal at the ps - on input keeps the power supply remained at its turned off state . on the other hand , the logical low signal on the ps - on input will activate the power supply and brings up the computer system unconditionally . in a preferred embodiment , further controlling signals derived from other control logic of the computer system can be relayed to the power supply control unit 46 . these additional controlling signals may be used as contributing factors in the process of the generation of the power supply control signal , the ps - on signal in the depicted example of fig3 used to control the atx power supply unit 30 . for example , if the computer system is equipped with a main power switch , a signal msw used to designate the logical on - off status of this switch may be input to the power supply control unit 46 , as is illustrated in the drawing . in the case of logically positive convention for both the password match pm and the main switch status msw signals , a logical nand operation may be implemented on both signals by the power supply control unit 46 to obtain the logically negative ps - on output . while the invention has been described by way of example and in terms of preferred embodiment , it is to be understood that the invention need not be limited to the disclosed embodiments . for example , typical ibm - compatible computer systems employ a simple 8 - bit microcontroller to implement the keyboard interface control on the system motherboard . the typical external keyboard unit used in these × 86 - based computers may therefore employ a microcontroller having correspondingly compatible processing capability to implement the control of the independent keyboard unit . microcontrollers at both sides of the keyboard interface may be communicating to each other in a serial connection . however , other forms of communication between the two are also possible for the implementation of the invention . for instance , since there are other peripheral devices present on the xa / xd peripheral buses where the keyboard interface microcontroller resides , microcontroller of higher performance may be necessary to replace the conventional intel 8042 / 8048 device used in the case of an ibm - compatible computer . under such a situation , the security control apparatus of the invention is still applicable . meanwhile , due to the fact the modern personal computers are built around asic ( application - specific ic ) devices , the security control apparatus of the invention is also feasible in these asic circuitry and may be included in the core logic chipsets of the computer system . since the logic circuitry of the security control apparatus of the invention is relatively simple compared with the computer core logic , therefore , the incorporation of the inventive apparatus in the computer core logic asic device barely adds noticeably to the overall gate count . in other words , asic devices incorporating the apparatus of the invention does not add significantly to the total semiconductor fabrication cost . on the other hand , since the security control apparatus has a relatively simple logic circuitry , minor electric power is consumed . in other words , the incorporation of the security control apparatus of the invention is very suitable for the standby power source in power supply units such as the atx specification . further , in addition to power supply unit of the atx specification , other standards such as the nlx or ps / 2 , whichever featuring the enabling input for implementing the soft power control , are all applicable as well . therefore , the above descriptive paragraphs are intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims , the scope of which should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures .	6
fig1 is a physical block diagram of the document delivery system 10 of the present invention which is comprised of a document server 12 including hardware 14 and software 16 . server 12 communicates with numerous document sending and receiving devices including a conventional fax machine 18 connected through the public switched telephone network ( pstn ) 20 , and various other types of devices connected through a network 22 for example the internet or an intranet such as local area network ( lan ) or wide area network ( wan ). the various types of sending and receiving devices include a web browser thin client 24 , a user custom application 26 , a microsoft foundation classes ( mfc ) thick client 28 , an e - mail server 30 , any windows ® print - capable application 32 , and a drop directory 34 . additional target devices , for example a cell phone or pda , are also contemplated . hardware 14 comprises a conventional cpu 36 connected by a pci bus 38 to ( a ) fax / modem board ( s ) 40 a (, 40 b . . . 40 n ) which are in turn connected to pstn 20 . in a preferred embodiment , the fax / modem board ( s ) 40 a , 40 b . . . 40 n are cpi / 2400 - 1t1 facsimile boards , each with twenty - four multiplexed channels , from intel corp ., santa clara , calif . other types of board may be used . cpu 36 is also connected through address 42 and data 44 busses and i / o circuits 46 to a network interface controller ( nic ) 48 and to other i / o ports 50 interfacing to such i / o devices as monitors , keyboards and displays ( not shown ) typically used to communicate with the system , for example , to program it . other conventional components of server 12 , for example a power supply and chassis , are not shown . cpu 36 is also connected through address 42 and data 44 busses to a memory 52 made up of read only memory ( rom ), random access memory ( ram ), and a long term mass storage device such as a hard disk drive , not shown . the rom and ram store instructions and data for booting the operating system ( os ), setting initial system variables and storing transient data generated by routine operations of cpu 36 , while data files are stored on the hard disk . the invention uses an embedded os 54 , preferably windows ® 2003 server application kit ( sak ) from microsoft corporation of redmond , wash . using an embedded os provides a number of advantages including ease of portability , ease of programming , ease of interface and a large population of device drivers . selecting a windows based os enables the broadest coverage of applications ( and thus supported file types ) that can be installed on the server for server - side rendering or document conversion . startup / persistence manager module 56 manages the startup and shutdown of document server 12 and provides required basic operational services including timer management , clock / time - of - day management , and memory management to ensure the integrity of data and an orderly transition of pending tasks during power up and down sequences . the persistence manager monitors and restarts hung or crashed services to improve availability of the document delivery services . these tasks are accomplished in a manner well known in the art . trace / error log module 58 tracks , and if possible assists in correcting , error conditions related to operation of document server 12 . for example , if a document was to be delivered to a particular target device , but that device was unavailable to receive , then after a predetermined number of attempts a “ failure to deliver ” error would be declared . data associated with the error is then written to a log for later analysis . other error conditions are handled in a similar manner . networked systems are susceptible to attack , and therefore certain security activities , for example , authentication , authorization , accounting , audit trails , and public key encryption , are required to ensure a high level of task / data integrity . security module 60 contains instructions necessary to interpret and act upon tasks and data related to operating document server 12 , and uses data contained in the document delivery database 74 as well as specific data generated by other functions within the system to monitor for , assess , and inform the system of , security threats . operating system 54 , startup / persistence manager module 56 , trace / error log module 58 , and security module 60 operate in the background and interact with other modules that make up the software 16 of document server 12 . in addition to the conventional general software / firmware components required by cpu 36 , memory 52 stores a number of specific purpose software function program modules . microsoft internet information server ( iis ™) with an active server page ( asp ) 62 is a standard web server . it is programmed with specific purpose asp pages that provide the thin client web browser interface 80 to the document delivery server . the specific purpose wsdl and soap files 86 provide a web services programming interface to the document delivery server . an e - mail gateway module 64 accepts incoming documents as mime attachments from networked e - mail servers including smtp , notes ™, or exchange ™ represented as e - mail server 30 . a document delivery printer module 66 accepts incoming documents from any application that is compatible with the windows ® graphical device interface ( gdi ) and is capable of printing . a fax board scheduler module 68 determines and manages which of the channels in the several fax / modem boards 40 should be used for a particular document transaction . an administration module 70 manages the document delivery server configuration and user tables . the user tables include a mapping of fax numbers and email addresses for the routing of incoming jobs to users in the system . a queue manager module 72 manages both the incoming and outgoing document queues . a document delivery database module 74 contains a number of tables for configuration of the document delivery server , user settings , incoming , outgoing , archival , and notice queues . a document converter module 76 converts files in job groups to the set of file formats required by all destinations in the job group . for each type of input file , the associated application with the file type ( for example ms word for . doc files ) is launched and a print command is issued to the document delivery printer that outputs appropriate file types for the target device . for example , the printer may output faxable tiff files for a fax target device or pdf files for a pda device . an archiver module 78 creates and maintains a backup of documents processed by document server 12 . it may connect to any odbc compliant database and windows unc networked mapped directory to store backups of the document delivery server jobs . fig2 is a logical block diagram showing relationships between software modules involved in processing communications between various sending and receiving devices . document server 12 may be accessed in multiple ways . a first path into document server 12 is via a web browser interface 24 . this is referred to as a “ thin client ” or “ zero install ” method since no dedicated software need be loaded , and no software other than a web browser is required , on the user &# 39 ; s system . a user sends a document via the web browser thin client 24 to document server 12 for delivery to a receiver . since web browsers use the standard http transport , and since the software of the document server 12 can receive documents of any registered file type , users may simply use their web browsers to send documents for delivery . the document sent by the user transits network 22 and arrives at nic 48 in document server 12 . web browser interface program 80 is part of the microsoft internet information server ( iis ™) 62 which in turn is bundled with the windows 2000 ® os 54 . the document is passed to an active server page ( asp ) within the iis 62 which in response generates html code . asp iis 62 passes the document via queue manager application program interface ( api ) 84 to queue manager module 72 . the queue manager module 72 operates upon the incoming document to retrieve and analyze data fields . these data are used in cooperation with document delivery database 74 to verify the user &# 39 ; s sender information and determine what if any document conversion is required , and schedule the outgoing document . once scheduled , the document is placed in the outgoing queue where it will be transmitted as described below . a second path into document server 12 is through a user custom application 26 , which is identical to the thin client case except that the user must write custom application 26 , which can be in any language as long as the interface is simple object access protocol ( soap ) compliant . the soap - compliant application program must reside on the user &# 39 ; s system . soap interface 86 accepts soap messages over the http transport protocol for further processing by ms iis 62 . a third path into document server 12 is via an mfc application 28 , a so - called “ thick client ,” running on a user &# 39 ; s system . for this method a dedicated interface application resides on the user &# 39 ; s system ( not shown ). the interface application is specifically written to interface with the admin api 82 and the queue manager api 84 software . the interface application enables incoming documents to be presented directly via queue manager api 84 to the queue manager module 72 . operations upon the incoming document are the same as for the zero install case . other inputs originating from web browser thin client 24 , user custom application 26 and mfc thick client 28 are routed through admin api 82 to the administration manager which manages the document delivery server &# 39 ; s configuration , user accounts , routing tables , fax line allocation , and other custom settings . a fourth path for a document to be delivered to document server 12 is by e - mail using conventional protocols such as simple mail transfer protocol ( smtp ), lotus ™ notes ™, or microsoft exchange ™. other e - mail protocols could be used as well . a sender &# 39 ; s e - mail server 30 delivers an e - mail document via a network 22 such as the internet to e - mail interface 88 , which passes the incoming document to e - mail gateway module 64 , which is capable of receiving , analyzing and acting upon incoming documents in a variety of formats . e - mail gateway module 64 operates in a manner well understood in the art . e - mail gateway module 64 in turn sends the received document to queue manager module 72 for further handling . a fifth path for a document to be delivered to document server 12 is from any windows ® print capable application 32 such as microsoft word ® which can format a document in a graphical device interface ( gdi ) ( bitmapped ) file . the incoming document is received via printer interface 90 and passed to the document delivery printer module 66 which extracts tag delimited commands embedded within the document text and parses the commands to evaluate such data as the source , destination , and delivery options , among other information . printer module 66 converts the incoming document to a tagged image file format ( tiff ) format and passes it to queue manager 72 for further handling . queue manager 72 uses data retrieved from the embedded commands to look up target information contained in document delivery database 74 . a sixth path into document server 12 is by way of a drop directory 34 , which is a location in a sender &# 39 ; s computer where a user may simply “ drop ” a file containing metadata about a delivery job . the metadata file may contain references to multiple documents also copied to the drop directory which will be included as the body of the delivery job . more than one ( not shown ) drop directory may be present . queue manager 72 continuously polls or checks the drop directory 34 to see if a new metadata job file or job group has appeared . if so queue manager 72 retrieves the job file , determines what actions are necessary from data fields contained within the document ( s ), and acts upon the document ( s ) as required . inputs originating from web browser thin client 24 , user custom application 26 , mfc thick client 28 , e - mail server 30 , windows print - capable application 32 , and drop directory 34 are routed through queue manager api 84 . the queue manager 72 schedules conversion for all documents to all required destination file formats . cover pages may be rendered individually for each job or destination in the job group , where attachments will only be rendered once per job group per target file type . after conversion , queue manager 72 checks “ castelle internet faxing ” ( cif ) routing tables to see if a job belongs in the local global job queue or needs to be forwarded to another master queue manager 72 on a document delivery server 12 in a different location . once in the global ready job queue , and the delivery time has passed the job is available to the fax schedulers in the cluster on a fifo basis . a user may send a document on a seventh path from a traditional fax machine 18 via pstn 20 and through a fax / modem interface board 40 and fax scheduler module 68 . fax board scheduler module 68 receives instructions from , and passes received faxes to , queue manager module 72 . since the received document is already in a proper ( tiff ) format for handling , queue manager module 72 is able to process the incoming document without a conversion step . these seven input paths are not the only possible methods of document submission using this invention . other input paths may be used without departing from the method of the invention . queue manager module 72 generates and maintains the data contained in the document delivery database module 74 , and works with document delivery . database module 74 and document converter module 76 to ensure that a specific document is properly formatted and delivered to the appropriate user . for example , when an incoming document is received from e - mail server 30 and destined for a target device 18 or 30 , document conversion module 76 uses the data contained in document delivery database 74 to first determine whether the particular target device needs the document formatted for transmission and , if so , converts the document to the proper format . queue manager module 72 also operates in conjunction with archiver module 78 and implements the invention &# 39 ; s unique load balancing algorithm . archiver module 78 is a scheduled task that backs up all transactions for a given period of time . since this is a scheduled task , for example , every 24 hours at midnight , a run time may be selected that has the least impact on ordinary traffic . archiver module 78 accomplishes the back - up task in a well known manner . while archiver module 78 is resident on document server 12 , the actual storage of data may be either local or remote . once a document has been received by document server 12 , software 16 interprets incoming documents , determines what actions are required , identifies the target device ( s ) for the document ( s ), if necessary converts the incoming document to the format expected by the target device , performs the action ( s ) and deliver the document ( s ) to the indicated addressees . are destinations for documents processed by document server 12 . the target devices 18 and 30 may differ from each other . queue manager module 72 stores the incoming and outgoing documents as files in queues in the database 74 on the document delivery server &# 39 ; s hard disk ( not shown ). an incoming queue record includes identification fields for job number , user id , origination id as well as communication status and capability such as receive status , resolution , time , duration , baud rate , signal conditions such as noise and strength , page count and direct inward dialing data . other fields may also be used . an outgoing queue record includes identification data , outgoing queue data , document data , transmission channel data , and target device data . identification data includes job id , originating job id and user id . outgoing queue data comprises queue status prior to any required document conversion , queue status after any required document conversion , job priority , job group id if the document is part of a group job , and cover page data . document data includes , among other fields , a file path , transmission type , number of pages to be sent , completed transmission attempts , timeout data , transmission attempt scheduling , number of pages sent and any error codes reported . transmission channel data includes such fields as line noise level , signal quality , signal strength , baud rate capability , baud rate used for transmission , and target device capabilities . target device data is comprised of , among other fields , one or more user keys , sender &# 39 ; s name , a comment field , a company name field , time the transmission actually started , sent resolution , number of transmission attempts , the retry delay , certain customer accounting data for billing , a telephone line number , telephone line group number , the target number to be dialed and the actual number dialed . there are a number of other data fields in the transmission channel data that are not presented since they do not directly impinge on the method of the invention . once an incoming document has been received and any initial processing has been completed , for example parsing embedded commands in the document delivery printer module 66 , all documents are converted to the appropriate target destination format and henceforth processed in the same way , for example , if a sender has placed a file in their drop directory 34 and the document has been received , then a job number is assigned and target data collected and analyzed by queue manager module 72 cooperating with administration module 70 . data contained in the document database module 74 is used to identify sender and receiver , determine if the incoming file requires conversion for any of the designated target devices , and verify any security requirements . if the incoming document requires conversion for any of the target devices , the queue manager module 72 instructs the document converter module 76 to process the document . an advantage of the invention is that a single incoming document may be delivered to a plurality of target devices simultaneously . queue manager module 72 instructs the document converter module 76 to produce a converted document for each target device . as a result , a single incoming document can yield multiple outgoing jobs , each with their particular document format requirement . the multiple jobs ( one for each destination ) become members of a single job group . if the incoming document requires only a single outgoing job , which is a fax job , then queue manager module 72 assembles the job and passes the outgoing document to the fax board scheduler module 68 which , obeying line use and load balancing rules discussed below , analyzes the job , sets outgoing communication session characteristics such as baud rate , resolution and the like , and ultimately prompts the fax board driver module 40 ( n ) to dial the number initiating the outgoing transmission . the reference designator 40 ( n ) indicates that there may be more than one instance of a fax board in document server 12 . the fax board driver 40 ( n ) establishes a connection with the target device , in this case traditional fax machine 18 , and transacts the delivery , thereby completing the process . in this way the invention can receive one or more documents from a plurality of sources , analyze , process and deliver the one or more incoming documents to one or more target devices in a format capable of being used by the one or more target devices even if the format requirements of the target devices differ . if the target device is local then the number dialed on pstn 20 is not a long distance call . however , document transmissions can be very large in size and if the call is long distance it can be expensive . therefore the invention preferably reduces that expense by using the less expensive internet to pass the document to a remote location and then distribute the document via a local pstn call to the ultimate target device . this process is denominated castelle internet faxing ( cif ), which requires multiple instances of document server 12 — one at each end . for example a company may have an office in morgan hill , calif . and an office in new york , n . y . rather than use traditional fax - to - fax delivery over long distance pstn lines , the company can install a document server 12 in both offices . a user in the new york office inputs a document , using any of the input cases described above , for several target devices in the morgan hill area . document server 12 in new york prepares the necessary documents , assembles the outgoing job and , using the proprietary cif software over the more economical internet communications medium , passes the entire job to document server 12 in morgan hill . document server 12 in morgan hill receives the job via nic 48 . since the same cif software is resident on both servers , document server 12 in morgan hill simply processes the job as if it had originated locally . documents destined for each designated target device have already been formatted , thus the server in morgan hill simply delivers the documents as it had processed the entire job locally . in this way the method of the invention provides a more economic method for simultaneously delivering properly formatted documents to a plurality of remote target devices . multiple document delivery servers 12 may be clustered together in a master / slave ( s ) configuration . each slave is responsible only for the fax lines connected to its respective slave node . the master keeps track of the fax lines connected to its own lines , and also tracks the status of each of the slave node lines and jobs . the entire set of lines for the master and all the slaves are presented as one set of “ virtual ” lines to the clients of the document delivery server queue manager clients . if three nodes have 48 lines each , the 144 physical lines are presented as one set of “ virtual ” lines to all the client interfaces into the master document delivery server . the master document delivery server runs all the software services in fig2 , where the slave document delivery server really only runs the fax scheduler service and document conversion services as slaves ( clients ) to the master document delivery server &# 39 ; s queue manager service . each fax board scheduler 68 on each node is responsible for maintaining an array of jobs ready to be sent . the size of the array is twice the number of lines on the node . this size assures that there will always be jobs “ ready ” to be sent when a line is available . when a send job completes , the status ( successful , busy tone , . . . ) is sent the master queue manager , and the job is deleted from the local cache of “ ready ” send jobs . a thread in the fax board scheduler 68 keeps the local cache of “ ready ” send jobs full by requesting more jobs from the master queue manager when there are empty slots in the local array . the master just responds to requests from slaves for “ ready ” jobs . when responding to a request , the master queue manager notes which slave has been assigned the jobs and will not allow the jobs to be assigned to multiple slaves . other load balancing schemes often try complex scheduling algorithms on a master , but that creates a bottleneck on performance of the entire cluster in the master queue manager . the distributed nature of this request / response architecture allows for efficient scaling out of the load , while presenting a unified view of the entire cluster &# 39 ; s physical lines to users of the cluster . line utilization occurs independently of load balancing . once a fax scheduler has acquired a number of send jobs equal to 2 × the number of lines it is scheduling for , the line utilization algorithms determine how to assign those jobs to a particular line . current systems maintain an acceptable number of idle lines by setting lines to “ receive only ”, “ send only ”, or “ bi - directional ”. it is common practice for administrators to configure “ receive only ” lines as an assurance that they won &# 39 ; t send a “ busy ” tone to incoming calls . this method does not allow a dynamic mix of send and receive jobs to fully utilize the lines and still maintain a dedicated number of idle lines for incoming calls . the administrator must predict a static setting for the expected send and receive workload . the invention &# 39 ; s novel line utilization algorithm ( numidlelines & gt ; minidlelines ) defines when a line is available for send jobs . if a line is available , one of the jobs in the local send “ ready ” array is assigned a line by the node &# 39 ; s fax scheduler 68 . this allows all lines to be set to “ bi - directional ” and a dynamic mix of send and receive jobs to be scheduled on the system while still maintaining a threshold of available lines reserved for incoming jobs that avoids sending a busy signal . any given document server 12 may contain a plurality of fax boards 40 connected to pstn 20 , and each fax board 40 may contain as many as 30 separate channels . since incoming documents may be arriving at any time , and since outgoing documents occupy channel space , the invention provides a line utilization method for ensuring that both incoming and outgoing activities may occur simultaneously . the faxpress ™ system administrator can reserve a default minimum number of channels ( minidlelines , fig4 ) for incoming documents . this insures that document server 12 will always be able to receive jobs . consider that at some arbitrary point in time an incremental incoming job arrives . for this example , assume that there are 24 channels total available for use , and that 12 of these are sending traffic and 11 are receiving traffic . assume further that the system administrator has reserved a minimum of three lines ( minidlelines = 3 in fig4 ) to be for incoming traffic . since one channel remains open , and since three is the minimum for receiving , the last open channel is reserved for an incremental incoming job . on the other hand , if three more receive jobs finish , there would now be 12 sending lines and 8 receiving lines with 4 idle lines . because minidlelines ( 3 )& lt ; numidlelines ( 4 ), a send job is allocated to a line and there would now be 13 send jobs and 8 receive jobs . one advantage of the invention is the ability to deliver a single source document in multiple formats to multiple destinations simultaneously . this is accomplished by analyzing the incoming document to determine what target devices are intended , then operating upon the incoming document to create separate , properly formatted documents for each of the target devices . once created , the documents are grouped as a job and simultaneously transmitted to all target devices . a second advantage of the invention is enabling the economic use of transmission media . this is accomplished through both line utilization and load balancing . line utilization occurs within each instance of a document server , while load balancing occurs over a cluster of master / slaved configured document servers 12 . the result is the physically and economically optimized use of document delivery resources . a third advantage of the invention is level of integration of document delivery functions . this is accomplished by providing a plug - and - play solution where all necessary hardware and software are provided in a single , easily installed digital device . users of the document server simply attach the server 12 to a source of power , insert pstn 20 and network 22 connections , and turn the server on . a system administrator then sets initial preferences , such as minimum number of incoming channels , and the server is ready for use . a fourth advantage of the invention is flexibility . a wide range of input paths may be used to simultaneously deliver a document to a plurality of target devices even though each of the designated target devices may require different formats . users of the system may make use of document delivery without the need to install any dedicated software via a web browser interface . at the other end of the input spectrum , legacy devices such as traditional fax machines may be used to input documents . while the present invention is described in terms of a preferred embodiment , it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that this embodiment may be modified without departing from the essence of the invention . it is therefore intended that the following claims be interpreted as covering any modifications falling within the true spirit and scope of the invention .	7
hereinafter , an a / d converter according to each of preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings . fig1 is a circuit diagram illustrating the entire configuration of an a / d converter according to a first embodiment of the present invention . in fig1 , an a / d converter 100 includes a reference voltage generator circuit 101 , a differential amplifier circuit array 102 , a voltage comparator circuit array 103 , an encoder circuit ( coding circuit ) 105 , and a regulator circuit 106 . the reference voltage generator circuit 101 generates a plurality ( n + 1 ) of reference voltages vr 1 through vrn + 1 by dividing a voltage between a high voltage side reference voltage applied to a high voltage side terminal 101 a and a low voltage side reference voltage applied to a low voltage side terminal 101 b by a plurality ( n ) of resistors r 1 through rn connected in series . the generated reference voltages vr 1 through vrn + 1 are input to a differential amplifier circuit array 102 . the differential amplifier circuit array 102 includes n + 1 differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 . each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 includes two input terminals and one of the input terminals receives an input analog signal voltage ain from an analog signal voltage input terminal 104 and the other one of the input terminals receives an associated one of the reference voltages vr 1 through vrn + 1 . each of the differential amplifier circuits amplifies a differential voltage between the analog signal voltage ain input from the analog signal voltage input terminal 104 and the associated one of the reference voltages vr 1 through vrn + 1 to a power supply voltage and then outputs complementary non - inversion output and inversion output voltages , simultaneously with the other ones of the differential amplifier circuits . the voltage comparator circuit array 103 includes n + 1 voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 for performing an operation according to a clock signal from a clock terminal c . each of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 receives the non - inversion and inversion output voltages from an associated one of the differential amplifier circuits in the previous stage , compares the levels of the non - inversion and inversion output voltages to each other for every predetermined interval according to the clock signal , and then a result of the comparison is output to the encoder circuit 105 as a digital signal . the digital signal is , for example , an h or l level digital signal according to the comparison result . the encoder circuit 105 converts comparison result for n + 1 digital values output from the voltage comparator circuit array 103 , generates a single digital data signal having a predetermined resolution , and then outputs the digital data signal . then , the regulator circuit 106 , i . e ., a feature component of an a / d converter according to the present invention generates a feedback bias voltage ( feedback control voltage ) fb so that the level of each of the non - inversion and inversion output voltages of each of the plurality of differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 in the differential amplifier circuit array 102 are in an input range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 in the voltage comparator circuit array 103 , and then performs bias regulation for the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 . details of the regulator circuit 106 will be described later . next , the configuration of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 in the differential amplifier circuit array 102 will be described . each of the differential amplifier circuits has the same configuration . fig2 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of a differential amplifier circuit an and the configuration of the differential amplifier circuit an will be hereinafter described . in fig2 , the differential amplifier circuit an includes a differential pair including an nmos transistor m 1 for receiving at the gate an analog signal voltage ain from the analog signal voltage input terminal 104 and an nmos transistor m 2 for receiving at the gate a reference voltage vrn generated in the reference voltage generator circuit 101 . one end of a constant current supply sc 1 which is formed of a single nmos transistor and supplies a constant current ida is connected to the source of each of the transistors m 1 and m 2 , while the other end of the constant current supply sc 1 is grounded . on the other hand , one end of each of constant current supplies sc 2 and sc 3 each of which is formed of a single pmos transistor and supplies a constant current i 1 is connected to the drain of each of the nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 . a power supply voltage vdda is supplied to the other end of each of the constant current supplies sc 2 and sc 3 . furthermore , in the differential amplifier circuit an of fig2 , the respective sources of pmos transistors m 3 and m 4 are connected to a node between the transistor m 1 and the constant current supply sc 2 and a node between the transistor m 2 and the constant current supply sc 3 , respectively . an end of each of load resistors r 1 and r 2 is connected to the drain of each of the transistors m 3 and m 4 and the other end of each of the load resistors is grounded . the two pmos transistors m 3 and m 4 together form a cascode circuit . output terminals vob and vo are connected to a node between the pmos transistor m 3 and the load resistor r 1 and a node between the pmos transistor m 4 and the load resistor r 2 , respectively . the operation of the differential amplifier circuit an will be described as follows . in the nmos transistor m 1 , a drain current id 1 according to the analog signal voltage ain flows . in the nmos transistor m 2 , a drain current id 2 according to the reference voltage vrn flows . the sum of the drain currents id 1 and id 2 is equal to the constant current ida of the constant current supply sc 1 ( id 1 + id 2 = ida ). in this case , the constant current i 1 of each of the constant current supplies sc 2 and sc 3 is set to be a higher value than that of each of the drain currents id 1 and id 2 ( i 1 & gt ; id 1 , id 2 ). accordingly , a differential current ( i 1 − id 1 ) flows in each of the pmos transistor m 3 and the load resistor r 1 and a differential current ( i 1 − d 2 ) flows in each of the pmos transistor m 4 and the load resistor r 2 . as a result , at the output terminals vob and vo , the following output voltages appear , respectively . then , if it is assumed that each of the load resistors r 1 and r 2 takes the same resistance value r , a voltage ( vo − vob ) between the output terminals vob and vo is expressed by the following equation . in this embodiment , if the respective constant currents i 1 of the constant current supplies sc 2 and sc 3 are regulated by inputting the feedback bias voltage fb from the regulator circuit 106 to the gate of each of the two pmos transistors forming the constant current supplies sc 2 and sc 3 , respectively , the voltage ( vo − vob ) between the output terminals is regulated . note that , instead of the current sources sc 2 and sc 3 , the feedback bias voltage fb from the regulator circuit 106 may be input to the gate of the nmos transistor forming the constant current supply sc 1 . subsequently , the internal configuration of the regulator circuit 106 provided in the a / d converter 100 will be described . the regulator circuit 106 of fig3 includes a differential amplifier circuit replica 201 , a voltage comparator circuit replica 202 , an operational amplifier circuit 203 , and a reference voltage output circuit 204 . the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 has the same circuit configuration and shape as those of each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 and the same voltage as the power supply voltage vdda for the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 is supplied to the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 . a same voltage , i . e ., a voltage vo is input to each of two input terminals of the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 and two common mode voltages are output from the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 . the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 has the same circuit configuration and shape as those of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 of the voltage comparator circuit array 103 . the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 receives the two common mode voltages from the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 and outputs two common mode voltages according to the received two common mode voltages . the two common mode voltages output from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 are input to an average voltage generator circuit 300 including a resistor 301 and a resistor 302 each of which receives at one end an associated one of the common mode voltages . in the average voltage generator circuit 300 , the other end of the resistor 301 and the other end of the resistor 302 are connected to each other . if an offset exists between the two common mode voltages from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 , a node between the respective other ends of the resistors 301 and 302 outputs a voltage at a midpoint level between the common mode voltages , i . e ., an average common mode voltage . furthermore , in the regulator circuit 106 of fig3 , the reference voltage output circuit 204 outputs a single reference voltage which is equal to a center voltage of the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 of the a / d converter 100 . moreover , the operational amplifier circuit 203 receives an average common mode voltage from the average voltage generator circuit 300 and a single reference voltage output from an output terminal 205 of the reference voltage output circuit 204 . in the operational amplifier circuit 203 , a feedback bias voltage is output so that the average common mode voltage which has been output from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 and passed through the average voltage generator circuit 300 matches the reference voltage ( i . e ., the center voltage of the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 ). to the output side of the operational amplifier circuit 203 , a low - pass filter 400 is connected . the low pass filter 400 includes a resistor 401 and a capacitor 402 and removes high frequency components contained in the feedback bias voltage from the operational amplifier circuit 203 . the feedback bias voltage fb from which high frequency components have been removed is sent back to the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 in the regulator circuit 106 and then is sent back to the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 of fig1 via an output terminal 206 . therefore , in this embodiment , when changes in fabrication processes for the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 constituting the a / d converter 100 due to variations in process steps for fabricating a semiconductor device such as a transistor , a resistor , a capacitor and the like which together form each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 , changes in fabrication processes for the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 in the regulator circuit 106 occur as well , so that the average common mode voltage which has been output from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 and passed through the average voltage generator circuit 300 is changed . however , the operational amplifier circuit 203 generates a feedback bias voltage so that the average common mode voltage matches a reference voltage of the reference voltage output circuit 204 . the feedback bias voltage fb from which high frequency components have been removed by the low - pass filter 400 is sent back to the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 and the plurality of differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 . thus , the average common mode voltage from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 accurately matches the reference voltage of the reference voltage output circuit 204 , so that the common mode voltage of the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 is at the center of the input dynamic range for the comparator circuit replica 202 . as a result , the non - inversion and inversion output voltages of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 can become accurately in the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 of the voltage comparator circuit array 103 at all the time . moreover , in the regulator circuit 106 , particularly , the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 is disposed in the output side of the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 . therefore , also if changes in fabrication processes for the voltage comparator circuits cr through crn + 1 occur due to variations in process steps for fabricating a semiconductor device such as a transistor , a resistor , and a capacitor which together form each of the voltage comparator circuits cr through crn + 1 , changes in fabrication processes for the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 in the regulator circuit 106 occur as well , so that the common mode voltage from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 is changed . however , in the same manner as described above , based on the feedback bias voltage from the operational amplifier circuit 203 , the non - inversion and inversion output voltages of each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 become accurately in the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 through crn + 1 of the voltage comparator circuit array 103 at all the time . accordingly , even if not only changes in fabrication processes for the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 but also changes in fabrication processes for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 in the voltage comparator circuit array 103 occur , it is possible to cope with the changes in fabrication processes for voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 and also to have the non - inversion and inversion output voltages of each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 become even more accurately in the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 at all the time . therefore , although in this embodiment , the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 is disposed in the regulator circuit 106 , it is not necessary to dispose the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 if only changes in fabrication processes for the differential comparator circuit a 1 through an + 1 in the differential amplifier circuit array 102 are taken into consideration . furthermore , the low - pass filter 400 is disposed in the output side of the operational amplifier circuit 203 . thus , high - frequency noise contained in the feedback bias voltage from the operational amplifier circuit 203 is removed . therefore , a stable operation can be performed without influences of the high - frequency noise given to the operation of each of the differential amplifier circuit replica 201 and the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 . note that when the circuit scale of each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 of the differential amplifier circuit array 102 is sufficiently large , a parasitic resistance ( interconnect resistance ) of each of the differential amplifier circuits or a parasitic capacitance which an interconnect or each of the differential amplifier circuits itself becomes large and thus the same effect as that of the low - pass filter 400 is achieved . therefore , it is not necessarily to dispose the low - pass filter 400 therein . in addition , in this embodiment , an average common mode voltage is obtained by averaging out common mode voltages from the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 by the average voltage generator circuit 300 . however , needless to say , the present invention is not limited thereto , but when an offset of an output of the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 is relatively small , one of the two common mode voltages of the voltage comparator circuit replica 202 may be input to the operational amplifier circuit 203 . moreover , in this embodiment , the number of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 is the same as the number of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 . however , the present invention is not limited thereto but is applicable to the case where an output voltage of each of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 is divided ( e . g ., into two ) by resistors for interpolation and the same number of differential amplifier circuits as a fraction of the number of the voltage comparator circuits ( e . g ., ½ ) are provided . next , the reference voltage output circuit 204 of the regulator circuit 106 of fig3 will be described with reference to fig4 illustrating the internal configuration of the reference voltage output circuit 204 . the reference voltage output circuit 204 of fig4 includes a reference voltage generator circuit 500 , a switch array 502 , and a decoder 501 . the reference voltage generator circuit 500 is formed so that a resistor ladder including n + 1 resistors r 1 through rn + 1 connected in series is disposed between the power supply voltage vdda and the ground and generates a reference voltage between terminals of each of the resistors . moreover , the switch array ( selector circuit ) 502 includes n switches s 1 through sn . with one of the switches closed , corresponding one of the n reference voltages generated in the reference voltage generator circuits 500 is selected and the selected reference voltage is output from an output terminal 205 and input to the operational amplifier 203 of fig3 . furthermore , the decoder 501 receives a control signal cs from the outside via an input terminal 503 . in response to the control signal cr , the decoder 501 generates a selection signal for selecting one of the n switches s 1 through sn of the switch array 502 and then outputs the selection signal to the corresponding one of the switches . with the above - described configuration , the reference voltage output circuit 204 of fig4 can select one of a plurality of reference voltages according to the control signal cs from the outside via the input terminal 503 . therefore , even if an optimum reference voltage in designing a circuit is different from an optimum reference voltage for an actual circuit , reference voltages can be externally regulated , so that the operation margin is increased . next , an a / d converter according to a second embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to fig5 . fig5 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary arrangement of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 of the a / d converter 100 of fig1 . each of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 has the same configuration and therefore the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 will be hereinafter described as an example . the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 is a dynamic voltage comparator circuit characterized by its high - speed operation and low power consumption . the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 includes an input transistor section 10 with two nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 and a positive feedback section 11 having a cross - couple inverter latch section with two nmos transistors m 3 and m 4 and two pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 . in the input transistor section 10 , the two nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 receive at their gates a non - inversion output voltage in + and an inversion output voltage in − from the corresponding differential amplifier circuit a 1 , respectively . respective sources of the nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 are grounded . moreover , in the positive feedback section 11 , the power supply voltage vdd is applied to respective sources of the pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 . respective drains of the two nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 of the input transistor section 10 are connected to respective sources of the two nmos transistors m 3 and m 4 , respectively . complimentary output terminals q and qb are connected to respective gates of the pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 of the positive feedback section 11 . moreover , in the positive feedback section 11 , an nmos switch transistor m 5 is disposed between the drain of the nmos transistor m 3 and the drain of the pmos transistor m 7 . in the same manner , an nmos switch transistor m 6 is disposed between the drain of the mos transistor m 4 and the drain of the pmos transistor m 8 . the location at which each of the nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 is disposed is not limited to the above - described location . furthermore , in the positive feedback section 11 , a pmos switch transistor m 9 is disposed between the drain of the pmos transistor m 7 and the power supply source vdd . in the same manner , a pmos switch transistor m 10 is disposed between the drain of the pmos transistor m 8 and the power supply source vdd . a clock signal clk is input to the gate of each of the nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 and the pmos transistors m 9 and m 10 . the input transistor section 10 is operated in a linear region . the drain voltage of each of the transistors m 1 and m 2 is changed according to the non - inversion output voltage in + or the inversion output voltage in − of the differential amplifier circuit a 1 input to the gate of the nmos transistors m 1 or m 2 . a difference in the two drain voltages is output as a comparison result to the positive feedback section 11 . in the positive feedback section 11 , according to the clock signal clk , the comparison result output from the input transistor section 10 is amplified to the power supply voltage vdd . the positive feedback section 11 stores the amplified comparison result and outputs the comparison result as a digital signal from the output terminals q and qb . hereinafter , the operation of the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 will be specifically and simply described . when the clock signal clk is “ low ”, the nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 are turned off and the pmos transistors m 9 and m 10 are turned on . accordingly , the positive feedback section 11 is not operated and the output terminals q and qb are pulled up , so that each of the output signals q and qb is fixed to be “ high ” ( reset state ). at this time , a current does not flow at all in the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 . thereafter , when the clock signal becomes “ high ”, the nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 are turned on and the pmos switch transistors m 9 and m 10 are turned off , so that the positive feedback section 11 becomes operable . in this case , the nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 are operated in a linear region in which a drain current is linearly changed according to a gate voltage . a drain voltage vds 1 according to a gate voltage of the nmos transistor m 1 is generated in the nmos transistor m 1 and a drain voltage vds 2 according to a gate voltage of the nmos transistor m 2 is generated in the nmos transistor m 2 . the positive feedback section 11 performs positive feedback of a voltage difference between the drain voltages ( vds 1 − vsd 2 ), the voltage difference is amplified up to the power supply voltage ( vdd ), and the amplified voltage difference is maintained as it is . for example , when as for the drain voltages , vds 1 & lt ; vds 2 holds , positive feedback of a voltage difference between the drain voltages is performed , so that the output terminal q is amplified to the power supply voltage vdd and the output terminal qb is amplified to the ground ( vss ). in contrast , when vds 1 & lt ; vds 2 holds , positive feedback of the voltage difference is performed , so that the output terminal q is amplified to the ground ( vss ) and the output terminal qb is amplified to the power supply voltage vdd ( compare and latch state ). in the compare and latch state , a current flows in a period from the time when the clock signal is turned “ high ” to the time when a voltage difference between respective outputs of the output terminals q and qb is amplified to the power supply voltage vdd according to the input signals in + and in −, but a current does not flow in a period in which the respective output voltages at the output terminals q and qb are maintained . as described above , when the clock signal is “ low ”, a current does not flow at all , and when the clock signal is “ high ”, a current flows until the respective output voltages of the output terminals q and qb of the voltage comparator circuit a 1 are amplified , but a current does not flow during the period in which the respective output voltages at the output terminals q and qb are maintained . therefore , compared to a general constant current comparator circuit which requires a constant current at all the time , the comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 has the advantage of largely reducing power consumption . fig6 is a diagram illustrating another example of the reference voltage output circuit 204 of fig4 . a reference voltage output circuit 204 ′ of fig6 is different from the reference voltage output circuit 204 in that a reference voltage generator circuit 800 for generating a plurality of reference voltages is formed . the reference voltage generator circuit 800 includes a plurality ( n ) of voltage producing circuits 800 a through 800 n . each of the plurality of voltage producing circuits 800 a through 800 n generates a single reference voltage . the generated reference voltages are different to one another . the voltage producing circuit 800 a , i . e ., one of the voltage producing circuits 800 a through 800 n will be described as an example with reference to fig7 . the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 has substantially the same configuration as that of the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 . different points between the voltage producing circuit 800 a and the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 are : that the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 includes the positive feedback section 11 having the two nmos transistors m 3 and m 4 and the two pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 but the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 includes , instead of the positive feedback section 11 , a diode connection section 15 having the nmos transistors m 3 and m 4 and the pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 ; the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 includes the input transistor section 10 having the two nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 but the voltage producing circuit 800 a includes , instead of the input transistor section 10 , two resistors r 1 and r 2 ; and to the respective gates of the nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 and the pmos switch transistors m 9 and m 10 , not the clock terminal clk but a voltage fixing terminal powd to which a “ high ” level voltage is applied at all the time is connected . in the voltage producing circuit 800 a , an output terminal vref for outputting a reference voltage is connected to the gate of the pmos transistor m 7 of the diode connection section 15 . the configuration of the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 is equivalent to the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 in the following state . in the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 , when the clock signal is “ high ”, i . e ., when the two nmos switch transistors m 5 and m 6 are on and the two pmos switch transistors m 9 and m 10 are off , the positive feedback 11 becomes operable . in this case , the two nmos transistors m 1 and m 2 of the input transistor section 10 are operated in a linear region in which the drain currents are linearly changed by the gate voltages . in the nmos transistor m 1 , the drain voltage vds 1 according to the input signal to the gate thereof is generated , and in the nmos transistor m 2 , the drain voltage vds 2 according to the input signal to the gate thereof is generated . then , a steady state right before a time when the positive feedback section 11 has become operable in this voltage generation state and starts an amplification operation is present . thus , the voltage producing circuit 800 a is equivalent to a circuit state of the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 in a steady state . accordingly , in this embodiment , using the respective configurations of the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 and the voltage producing circuits 800 b through 800 n , i . e ., a steady state of each of the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 and the voltage comparator circuits cr 2 through crn + 1 , each of the voltage producing circuits 800 a through 800 n generates a single reference voltage . thus , it is possible to regulate the non - inversion and inversion output voltages of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 to be accurately in the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 while optimizing comparison sensitivity of each of the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 . moreover , in the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 , when a surrounding temperature is low , a threshold voltage of each of the pmos transistors m 7 and m 8 and the nmos transistors m 3 through m 6 is increased and an operation current flowing via the pmos transistor m 7 , the nmos transistors m 5 and m 3 and the resistor r 1 or an operation current flowing via the pmos transistor m 8 , the nmos transistors m 6 and m 4 and the resistor r 2 is reduced , compared to when a surrounding temperature is normal . in contrast , when the surrounding temperature is high , the operation currents are increased compared to when a surrounding temperature is normal . therefore , the voltage producing circuit 800 a has a relatively large temperature characteristic . in this case , assume that each of the resistors r 1 and r 2 is formed using a resistor element which has positive temperature dependency . at a low temperature , each of resistors r 1 and r 2 has a lower resistance value , thus thereby increasing the operation currents . at a high temperature , each of resistors r 1 and r 2 has a higher resistance value , thus thereby reducing the operation currents . therefore , the temperature dependency of the voltage producing circuit 800 a can be cancelled out . note that in this embodiment , according to the configuration in which in the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 of fig5 , the complementary output terminal q and inverse output terminal qb are connected to the gates of the pmos transistors m 8 and m 7 , respectively , in the voltage producing circuit 800 a of fig7 , the reference voltage output terminal vref is connected to the gate of the pmos transistor m 7 of the diode connection section 15 . needless to say , as another option , when the complementary output terminals q and qb of the voltage comparator circuit cr 1 ′ are connected to the sources of the two nmos transistors m 3 and m 4 of the positive feedback section 11 , respectively , in this configuration , as shown in fig8 , the reference voltage output terminal vref of the voltage producing circuit 800 a ′ may be connected to the source of the nmos transistor m 3 of the diode connection section 15 , as shown in fig9 . next , an a / d converting system according to a third embodiment of the present invention will be described . fig1 is a diagram illustrating the entire configuration of an a / d converting system of this embodiment . an a / d converting system 600 of fig1 includes an a / d converter 100 of fig1 and an adaptive circuit 601 connected to the a / d converter 100 . the adoptive circuit 601 adaptively controls ( leaning - controls ) a predetermined reference voltage generated by the reference voltage output circuits 204 and 204 ′ ( of fig4 and 5 ) built in the regulator circuit 601 of the a / d converter 100 of fig1 . hereinafter , the internal configuration of the adaptive circuit 601 will be described . note that as the voltage comparator circuits cr 1 through crn + 1 of the a / d converter 100 , the dynamic voltage comparator circuit of fig5 or fig8 may be used , and also , for the voltage producing circuits 800 a through 800 n of the reference voltage output circuit 204 ′ of the regulator circuit 106 , the configuration of fig7 or fig9 may be adopted . fig1 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of the adaptive circuit 601 . when the a / d converter 100 is powered on or at regular intervals , the adaptive circuit 601 of fig1 is operated prior to a normal operation of the a / d converter 100 . the adaptive circuit 601 includes a test signal generator circuit 605 for generating an analog test signal for evaluation , a control signal generator circuit 606 , and a memory 607 . at the power - up , the control signal generator circuit 606 makes the test signal generator circuit 605 to generate a test signal for evaluation and inputs the generated test signal to the a / d converter 100 . also , the control signal generator circuit 606 generates a control signal cs and inputs the control signal cs to the decoder 501 via the input terminals 503 of fig4 or fig6 to make the decoder 501 generate a selection signal of an initial value . as a result , in each of the reference voltage output circuits 204 and 204 ′ of fig4 and 6 , the reference voltage of an initial value is selected and , based on the reference voltage , the non - inversion and inversion output voltages from the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 can be regulated . in this manner , when with output voltages of the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 regulated , the a / d converter 100 a / d - converts the test signal for evaluation from the test signal generator circuit 605 , the memory 607 stores a / d conversion characteristic thereof and a value of the control signal cs . the control signal generator circuit 606 generates again for the second time a test signal for evaluation from the test signal generator circuit 605 and also changes the value of the control signal cs so as to generate from the decoder 501 a selection signal for the next step . the memory 607 stores an a / d conversion characteristic of the a / d converter 100 at this state and the value of the control signal cs . thereafter , the control signal generator circuit 606 evaluates the two a / d conversion characteristics . if the a / d conversion characteristic obtained at the first time is favorable , the value of the control signal cs obtained at the first time is set to be an appropriate control signal . on the other hand , if the a / d conversion characteristic obtained at the second time is favorable , a test signal for evaluation is again generated from the test signal generator circuit 605 , furthermore , and also the value of the control signal cs is changed so that a selection signal for the next step is generated from the decoder 501 . in this state , an a / d conversion characteristic at the third time and a value of the control signal cs is stored in the memory 607 to evaluate the a / d conversion characteristics obtained at the second and third times . thereafter , the above - described operation is repeated . therefore , in this embodiment , even when an appropriate reference voltage output from each of the reference voltage output circuits 204 and 204 ′ of the regulator circuit 106 is changed due to changes in the power supply voltage and its degradation with time , the reference voltage can be adaptively controlled so as to be an appropriate voltage level . thus , the non - inversion or inversion output voltages from the differential amplifier circuits a 1 through an + 1 preferably becomes in the input dynamic range for the voltage comparator circuits cr through crn + 1 , so that a stable a / d conversion characteristic can be obtained .	7
the technical solution of the embodiments of the present invention is hereinafter described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings . it is apparent that the embodiments described herein are only exemplary embodiments of the present invention . all other embodiments obtained by those skilled in art based on the embodiments herein without creative efforts are within the scope of the present invention . to enable the communication of sip phones over the cs domain of an hspa network , a sip phone based communication method is provided according to an embodiment of the present invention . the sip phone based communication method includes : when receiving sip signaling from a sip phone , sending an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling to an hspa network device ; or , when receiving an hspa call command from the hspa network device , sending the sip signaling associated with the hspa call command to the sip phone ; and when receiving an rtp packet from the sip phone , sending pcm data associated with the rtp packet to the hspa network device ; or , when receiving pcm data from the hspa network device , sending an rtp packet associated with the pcm data to the sip phone . the hspa network device in the embodiment of the present invention is a communication device applied in the hspa network , for example , a data card device ( such as a 3g data card , generally with a usb interface ) connected to a business support system ( bss ). through the sip phone based communication method provided according to the embodiment of the present invention , an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling received from the sip phone is sent to the hspa network device , or the sip signaling associated with an hspa call command received from the hspa network device is sent to the sip phone , thus establishing a signaling connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . in addition , through this method , pcm data associated with the rtp packet received from the sip phone is sent to the hspa network device , or an rtp packet associated with the pcm data received from the hspa network device is sent to the sip phone , thus establishing a data connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . thereby , the sip phone can communicate over the cs domain of the hspa network . further , the sip phone can back up a voice service via a wireless cs link . the method provided according to the above embodiment will be further described in two scenarios where the sip phone is a caller or a callee . in the case that the sip phone is the caller , the communication process of the sip phone based communication method provided according to the embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in fig1 . the process includes the following blocks : 101 . the sip phone originates a call by sending a sip invite message to the gateway device . 102 . the gateway device receives the invite message and sends an hspa call command associated with the invite message to the hspa network device . specifically , after receiving the sip signaling , the gateway device obtains the hspa call command associated with the sip signaling according to stored mapping information and sends the obtained hspa call command to the hspa network device . assume that the mapping information stored by the gateway device includes the association between the sip invite message and the hspa call origination command d and the association between the sip bye message and the hspa call disconnect command + chup . when the gateway device connects to the wireless cs domain through an internet card , the gateway device can translate the received invite message to a message that can be transferred between internal software modules of the system and then obtain the call origination command d associated with the invite message according to the association between the sip invite message and the hspa call origination command d , and then send the call origination command d to the internet card to originate a wireless cs call . the call origination command d is configured to originate a voice or data service call . further , after receiving the sip signaling , the gateway device needs to obtain the current state of all ports of the gateway device and determine an idle port according to obtained state information . after determining an idle port , the gateway device translates the sip signaling to a message . then , according to the stored mapping information , the gateway device obtains the hspa call command associated with the sip signaling and sends the hspa call command to the hspa network device via the determined idle port . 103 . the gateway device exchanges the hspa call command with the hspa network device and sends a ringing response to the sip phone . 104 . a call is established between the gateway device and the sip phone . 105 . the sip phone sends an rtp packet to the gateway device . 106 . the gateway device receives the rtp packet and sends the pcm data associated with the rtp packet to the hspa network device . specifically , after receiving the rtp packet , the gateway device translates the rtp packet to the pcm data through at least two methods . the first method is that the gateway device decodes the rtp packet to the pcm data through digital signal processing ( dsp ); the second method is that the gateway device negotiates with the sip phone to determine that the codec scheme of the sip phone is g . 711 and deletes the header of the rtp packet to obtain the pcm data associated with the rtp packet . after obtaining the pcm data associated with the rtp packet , the gateway device sends the pcm data to the hspa network device . therefore , if the gateway device supports voice functions , that is , configured with dsp , the gateway device can obtain the pcm data through dsp . if the gateway device does not support voice functions , that is , without dsp , the gateway device may negotiate forcibly to determine that the codec scheme of the sip phone is g . 711 and delete the header of the rtp packet to obtain the pcm data . 107 . the hspa network device sends pcm data to the gateway device . 108 . after receiving the pcm data , the gateway device sends an rtp packet associated with the pcm data to the sip phone . specifically , the gateway device translates the pcm data to an rtp packet in a method similar to that for translating an rtp packet to pcm data in block 106 . the first method is that the gateway device decodes the pcm data to an rtp packet through dsp ; the second method is that the gateway device negotiates with the sip phone to determine that the codec scheme of the sip phone is g . 711 and adds a header to the pcm data to obtain the rtp packet associated with the pcm data . after obtaining the rtp packet associated with the pcm data , the gateway device sends the rtp packet to the sip phone . therefore , if the gateway device supports voice functions , that is , configured with dsp , the gateway device can obtain the rtp packet through dsp . if the gateway device does not support voice functions , that is , without dsp , the gateway device may negotiate forcible to determine that the codec scheme of the sip phone is g . 711 and add a header to the pcm data to obtain the rtp packet . 109 . the sip phone disconnects the call by sending a sip bye message to the gateway device . 110 . the gateway device receives the bye message and sends an hspa call command associated with the bye message to the hspa network device . the specific processing principle in this block is the same as in block 102 and is therefore omitted here . if the gateway device connects to the wireless cs domain via an internet card , the gateway device may translate the received bye message to a call disconnect command + chup and send the call disconnect command + chup to the internet card to end the conversation . in addition , when the sip phone rings and the user does not answer , after the gateway device receives the bye message , the gateway device also sends the call disconnect command to the internet card . in the case that the sip phone terminates a call , the communication process of the sip phone based communication method provided according to the embodiment of the present invention is illustrated in fig2 . the process includes the following blocks : 201 . the hspa network device originates a call to the sip phone by sending an hspa call command that indicates an incoming call to the gateway device . for example , if the gateway device connects to the wireless cs domain via an internet card , after the internet card receives a call originated from the cs domain , the internet card sends an answer command a to the gateway device . the answer command a indicates a call to the sip phone . 202 . after receiving the hspa call command , the gateway device sends the sip signaling associated with the hspa call command , that is , an invite message , to the sip phone . specifically , after receiving the hspa call command , the gateway device will translate the hspa call command to a message . then , the gateway device obtains the sip signaling associated with the hspa call command according to stored mapping information and sends the sip signaling to the sip phone . assume that the mapping information stored by the gateway device includes the association between the sip invite message and the hspa answer command a and the association between the sip bye message and the hspa call disconnect command + chup . if the gateway device connects to the wireless cs domain via an internet card , the gateway device may first translate the answer command a received by the internet card to a message that can be transferred between internal software modules of the system , then obtain the invite message associated with the answer command a according to the association between the sip invite message and the hspa answer command a , and send the invite message to the sip phone . further , after receiving the hspa call command , the gateway device needs to obtain the current state of all ports of the gateway device and determine an idle port according to the obtained state information . after determining an idle port , the gateway device translates the hspa call command to a message . then , according to the stored mapping information , the gateway device obtains the sip signaling associated with the hspa call command and sends the sip signaling to the hspa network device via the determined idle port . 203 . after receiving the invite message from the gateway device , the sip phone sends a ringing response to the gateway device . 204 . a call is established between the sip phone and the gateway device . 205 . the hspa network device sends pcm data to the gateway device . 206 . after receiving the pcm data , the gateway device sends an rtp packet associated with the pcm data to the sip phone . the specific processing in block 206 is the same as that in block 108 . 207 . the sip phone sends an rtp packet to the gateway device . 208 . the gateway device receives the rtp packet and sends pcm data associated with the rtp packet to the hspa network device . the specific processing in block 208 is the same as that in block 106 . 209 . the sip phone disconnects the call by sending a sip bye message to the gateway device . 210 . the gateway device receives the bye message and sends an hspa call command associated with the bye message to the hspa network device . the specific processing in block 210 is the same as that in block 110 . through the sip phone based communication method provided according to the embodiment of the present invention , an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling received from the sip phone is sent to the hspa network device , or the sip signaling associated with an hspa call command received from the hspa network device is sent to the sip phone , thus establishing a signaling connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . in addition , through this method , pcm data associated with the rtp packet received from the sip phone is sent to the hspa network device , or an rtp packet associated with the pcm data received from the hspa network device is sent to the sip phone , thus establishing a data connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . thereby , the sip phone can communicate over the cs domain of the hspa network . further , the sip phone can back up a voice service via a wireless cs link . according to the above method , an embodiment of the present invention provides a gateway device . as shown in fig3 , the gateway device includes : a signaling and packet receiving unit 301 , configured to receive sip signaling or an rtp packet sent by a sip phone ; a command and data receiving unit 302 , configured to receive an hspa call command or pcm data sent by an hspa network device ; a translating unit 303 , configured to : obtain an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling received by the signaling and packet receiving unit 301 ; or obtain sip signaling associated with the hspa call command received by the command and data receiving unit 302 ; or obtain pcm data associated with the rtp packet received by the signaling and packet receiving unit 301 ; or obtain an rtp packet associated with the pcm data received by the command and data receiving unit 302 ; a signaling and packet sending unit 304 , configured to send the sip signaling or rtp packet obtained by the translating unit 303 to the sip phone ; and a command and data sending unit 305 , configured to send the hspa call command or pcm data obtained by the translating unit 303 to the hspa network device . a signaling and data translating subunit , configured to obtain the hspa call command associated with the sip signaling according to stored mapping information ; or obtain the sip signaling associated with the hspa call command according to the stored mapping information . a dsp subunit , configured to obtain the pcm data associated with the rtp packet received by the signaling and packet receiving unit 301 through dsp and forward the obtained pcm data to the command and data sending unit 305 ; or configured to obtain the rtp packet associated with the pcm data received by the command and data receiving unit 302 and forward the obtained rtp packet to the signaling and packet sending unit 304 . a deleting and adding subunit , configured to delete the header of the rtp packet received by the signaling and packet receiving unit 301 by using g . 711 codec to obtain the pcm data associated with the rtp packet and forward the obtained pcm data to the command and data sending unit 305 ; or configured to add a header to the pcm data received by the command and data receiving unit 302 by using g . 711 codec to obtain the rtp packet associated with the pcm data and forward the obtained rtp packet to the signaling and packet sending unit 304 . a port state obtaining unit , configured to obtain state information of current ports ; and an idle port determining unit , configured to determine an idle port according to the state information obtained by the port state obtaining unit . the signaling and packet sending unit 304 is further configured to send the sip signaling or rtp packets obtained by the translating unit 303 to the sip phone through the idle port determined by the idle port determining unit . the command and data sending unit 305 is further configured to send the hspa call command or pcm data obtained by the translating unit 303 to the hspa network device through the idle port determined by the idle port determining unit . the gateway device provided according to the embodiment of the present invention sends an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling received from the sip phone to the hspa network device , or sends the sip signaling associated with an hspa call command received from the hspa network device to the sip phone , thus establishing a signaling connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . in addition , the gateway device sends pcm data associated with the rtp packet received from the sip phone to the hspa network device , or sends an rtp packet associated with the pcm data received from the hspa network device to the sip phone , thus establishing a data connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . thereby , the sip phone can communicate over the cs domain of the hspa network . further , the sip phone can back up a voice service via a wireless cs link . fig4 illustrates an internal structure of the gateway device provided according to the embodiment of the present invention in a practical application . in fig4 , the sip server management module is configured to manage the registration of sip phones . the hspa / sip adapter module implements the function of the translating unit 303 in the preceding embodiment . the sip stack module is able to translate the received sip signaling or hspa call command to a message . the hspa module integrates functions of the command and data receiving unit 302 and the command and data sending unit 305 in the preceding embodiment . the sip user agent ( sip ua ) integrates functions of the signaling and packet receiving unit 301 and the signaling and packet sending unit 304 in the previous embodiment . the process where the gateway device translates sip signaling to an hspa call command is as follows : the sip phone registers with the sip server management module through sip signaling and the sip server management module forwards the sip signaling to the sip stack module ; the sip stack module parses the sip signaling and translates the sip signaling to a message , and notifies the call control module of the sip signaling ; the call control module obtains the state information of ports of the gateway device according to the sip signaling and obtains an idle port according to the obtained state information ; when the call control module obtains the idle port , the call control module sends the sip signaling to the hspa / sip adapter module ; the hspa / sip adapter module adapts the sip signaling to an hspa call command to obtain the associated hspa call command and sends the obtained hspa call command to the hspa module ; the hspa module sends the hspa call command to the hspa network device . the process where the gateway device translates an hspa call command to sip signaling is similar to the process where the gateway device translates sip signaling to an hspa call command and will not be further described . the gateway device provided according to the embodiment of the present invention sends an hspa call command associated with the sip signaling received from the sip phone to the hspa network device , and sends the sip signaling associated with an hspa call command received from the hspa network device to the sip phone , thus establishing a signaling connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . in addition , the gateway device sends pcm data associated with the rtp packet received from the sip phone to the hspa network device , or sends an rtp packet associated with the pcm data received from the hspa network device to the sip phone , thus establishing a data connection between the sip phone and the hspa network device . thereby , the sip phone can communicate over the cs domain of the hspa network . further , the sip phone can back up a voice service via a wireless cs link . those skilled in the art understand that all or part of the blocks of the method in the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented by hardware under instructions of a computer program , which may be stored in a computer readable storage medium . when executed , the program includes the processes of the method in the preceding embodiments . the storage medium may be a magnetic disk , a compact disk , a read - only memory ( rom ), or a random access memory ( rom ). although the present invention has been described through exemplary embodiments , the invention is not limited to such embodiments . it is apparent that those skilled in the art can make various modifications and variations to the invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention . the invention is intended to cover the modifications and variations provided that they fall within the scope of protection defined by the claims or their equivalents .	7
as used herein , the term “ infant ” means a human child between about 6 and about 30 months of age . capsules are a pancreatic enzyme supplement for oral administration . pancrelipase , the active ingredient in pancrease ® mt capsules , is a natural product harvested by extraction from the pancreas of the hog . pancrelipase powder is a slightly brown amorphous powder with a faint characteristic odor . it is partly soluble in water and practically insoluble in alcohol or ether . pancrease ® mt capsules contain enteric - coated microtablets of porcine pancreatic enzyme concentrate in the following theoretical quantities : pancrease ® mt 4 capsules : lipase 4 , 000 u . s . p . units amylase 12 , 000 u . s . p . units protease 12 , 000 u . s . p . units pancrease ® mt 10 capsules : lipase 10 , 000 u . s . p . units amylase 30 , 000 u . s . p . units protease 30 , 000 u . s . p . units pancrease ® mt 16 capsules : lipase 16 , 000 u . s . p . units amylase 48 , 000 u . s . p . units protease 48 , 000 u . s . p . units pancrease ® mt 20 capsules : lipase 20 , 000 u . s . p . units amylase 56 , 000 u . s . p . units protease 44 , 000 u . s . p . units the enteric - coated microtablets contained in pancrease ® mt capsules resist gastric inactivation and deliver enzymes into the duodenum . the enzymes in pancrease ® mt act locally in the gastrointestinal tract . the enzymes are present in the form of ph - sensitive entericcoated microtablets of 2 mm diameter which are filled into gelatin capsules . the microtablets , which are released from the capsule into the stomach , are enteric - coated to resist inactivation at low ph . once released , the microtablets are distributed into the stomach and pass into the duodenum where , when the ph reaches approximately 5 . 5 , the enteric coating begins to dissolve and release of the enzymes is initiated . the enzymes catalyze the hydrolysis of fats into glycerol and fatty acids , protein into proteoses and derived substances , and starch into dextrins and sugars . duodenal availability studies in adults indicate that following oral administration of pancrease ® mt to adults , measurable levels of enzymes are present in the duodenum . once they have accomplished their digestive function , the enzymes may be digested in the intestine . the constituents may be partially absorbed and subsequently excreted in the urine . any undigested enzymes are excreted in the feces . the inactive ingredients in pancrease ® mt capsules are cellulose , crospovidone , magnesium stearate , colloidal silicon dioxide , methacrylic acid copolymer , triethyl citrate , talc , polydimethylsiloxane , wax , gelatin , iron oxide , polysorbate 80 , sodium lauryl sulfate , titanium dioxide , and other trace ingredient . pancrease ® mt is indicated for the treatment of steatorrhea secondary to pi such as cf or chronic alcoholic pancreatitis . pancrease ® mt capsules are contraindicated in patients known to be hypersensitive to pork protein or any other component of this product . any pancrelipase oral enteric coated capsule product is useful in this invention . for example , other branded pancrease lipase oral enteric coated capsules that are useful in the present invention include cotazym - s ( organon us inc . ), creon ( solvay ), pancron ( pecos pharmaceutical inc . ), and ultrase ( axcan pharma , inc .). the invention illustratively disclosed herein suitably may be practiced in the absence of any component , ingredient , or step which is not specifically disclosed herein . several examples are set forth below to further illustrate the nature of the invention and the manner of carrying it out . however , the invention should not be considered as being limited to the details thereof . in order to develop a stronger insight into the pharmacodynamic effects of intra - luminal pancreatic enzymes in infants and children with cf , this study will include a quantifiable measure of lipase activity intra - luminally using the stable isotope 13c - mixed triglyceride assay . the opportunity of developing further understanding of the pharmacodynamic effects of intraluminal active pancreatic enzymes on lipid digestion will be easily acquired through this non - invasive technique . this study will provide novel and potentially useful data to assess the safety , palatability , and efficacy of four doses of pancrelipase microtablets in the treatment of infants and toddlers with cf - related pi with fat malabsorption . the 13c mixed triglyceride ( mtg ) breath test demonstrates duodenal lipolysis due to both residual endogenous and exogenous pancrease activity . for cf patients , both european and us consensus guidelines provide recommendations for pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy . while no specific product is mentioned , 1000 - 2000 u lipase / kg / meal is recommended . nevertheless , these doses have not been studied and there is no published literature on safe and effective doses of enzyme therapy in young infants and children less than 4 years of age . aims : to assess the efficacy of four dose levels of pancrelipase microtablets ( pancrease ® mt ) in the treatment of infants with cf - related pi with fat malabsorption . methods : eighteen infants , 6 - 30 months of age , were provided 500 usp units lipase / kg / meal of pancrelipase microtablets ( pancrease ® mt ) for five days ( 120 hours ) on an outpatient basis ( baseline period ). a 13c mtg breath test was performed on each infant after ingesting a liquid or solid test meal containing 13c mtg . breath samples were collected every 15 min for 6 hrs . the percentage of exhaled 13co2 was measured using isotope ratio mass spectrometry ( irms ) and the cumulative expired 13c was calculated . subsequently , the infants were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups in a 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 ratio as follows : 500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , 1000 usp units lipase / kg / meal , 1500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , or 2000 usp units lipase / kg / meal for five days ( 120 hours ) on an outpatient basis ( randomization period ). a second breath test was performed using the same methods . results : of the 18 subjects , 3 dropped out and 3 provided inadequate breath samples for analysis due to low co2 content . the 12 paired breath tests had been randomized 3 per dosage group . the study group included 8 girls and 4 boys aged 17 . 09 +/− 8 . 29 mo . mean expired cumulative 13co2 after the first breath test , with a dosage of 500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , in the 12 subjects was 15 . 32 +/− 18 . 09 %. the mean percent difference between the first and second breath test was − 1 . 77 % for the 500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , − 1 . 6 % for the 1000 usp units lipase / kg / meal , 15 . 35 % for the 1500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , and 125 . 32 % for the 2000 usp units lipase / kg / meal subjects respectively . the mean expired cumulative 13co2 for the 2000 usp units lipase / kg / meal subjects was 17 . 60 +/ — 27 . 12 %. previous dosing prior to screening averaged over 8500 usp units lipase / kg / day for the infants . during the study the four treatment groups averaged 1833 , 4479 , 6312 , and 7316 usp units lipase per / kg / day , respectively . 12 / 16 subjects were stable on a lower dose of enzymes during the study . 50 % of subjects were managed with less than ½ maintenance enzyme dose . conclusions : pancrease ® mt is clinically effective in the treatment of steatorrhea in infant pediatric subjects ages 6 - 30 months with cf . the 13c mtg breath test demonstrated pancreatic enzyme activity , i . e ., effectiveness , in the low normal range after 500 usp units lipase / kg / meal , which is below the current recommendations for the management of steatorrhea ( based on us and european union treatment guidelines . increasing the dosage to 1500 and 2000 usp units lipase / kg / meal improved lipolysis as demonstrated in the infants . mean values are subject to great variability due to a wide range of underlying residual endogenous lipase activity . there were no significant safety issues .	2
the present invention is directed to a force - multiplying percussor and self - applicator system for airway clearance , the system being referred to generally by reference numeral 20 . the system 20 comprises a percussor 22 and a self - applicator 24 , all of which are illustrated in fig1 - 12 . a first embodiment of the percussor 22 is shown in fig1 - 3 . the percussor 22 of the present invention consists of a hammer 26 and an anvil 28 oriented with respect to one another such that the hammer 28 may impact the anvil 28 . the percussor 22 is configured to be placed on the back or chest of a patient with the anvil 28 in contact with the patient &# 39 ; s body . typically , a user holds the percussor 22 in place by gripping the hammer 26 with one hand , palm on top , and then turns on the power . the force continually applied by the user to the hammer 26 is converted by the percussor 22 into repeated force - multiplied impulses in which the force associated with each impulse is significantly greater than the force being applied by the user on a continuing basis . the details of the percussor 22 design are shown in the sectional views of fig2 and 3 . the hammer 26 consists of a plastic structural member 30 attached to guiding member 32 . guiding member 32 may be either metal or plastic and attaches to structural member 30 utilizing mating threaded regions ( not shown ), coil 34 is embedded in structural member 30 as shown ( assuming structural member 30 is a plastic material ). the anvil 28 consists of ring 36 and platen 38 connected together by cylindrical guiding member 40 . ring 36 has a rectangular cross - section and is made of a magnetic material such as iron . guiding member 40 attaches to ring 36 by a press fit . platen 38 is attached to guiding member 40 by means of a machine screw ( not shown ). the hammer 26 has a force receiving surface 42 and a force delivering surface 44 . the anvil 28 also has a force receiving surface 46 and a force delivering surface 48 . if there is no current flowing through coil 34 , hammer 26 is free to slide back and forth along guiding member 40 subject only to the constraints imposed by the combination of structural member 30 and guiding member 32 . current flowing through coil 34 generates a magnetic field which exerts a force on ring 36 causing hammer 26 and anvil 28 to assume an extended position , i . e ., the relative positions shown in fig3 . in operation , a user places the force delivering surface 48 of the anvil 28 against a patient &# 39 ; s chest or back in the gentlest possible way and coil 34 is energized by a series of current pukes . when the coil 34 is energized , hammer 26 and anvil 28 will assume the extended position shown in hg . 3 and remain in that extended position for as long as the coil 34 is energized and the user does not apply a force to force - receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 . now assume that the user begins to apply a force ( with their hand ) to force - receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 while the coil 34 is energized with a current puke . nothing happens because the magnetic force from the energized coil 34 holding hammer 26 and anvil 28 in the extended position is greater than the force applied by the user . when the current puke to the coil 34 ends , the magnetic force holding the hammer 26 and anvil 28 in the extended position ends and any opposition to the force applied by the user to the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 disappears , the force -- delivering surface 44 of the hammer 26 then strikes the force - receiving surface 46 of the anvil 28 thereby delivering a considerably greater force to platen 38 than simply the force applied by the user &# 39 ; s hand alone . the force delivering surface 48 of the anvil 28 translates the impact from the hammer 26 against the anvil 28 to the patient &# 39 ; s chest or back with which it is in contact . the process repeats with each current puke supplied to coil 34 . the work expended by the user is the product f 1 d h , of the force f 1 applied by the user to the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 and the distance d h traveled by the hammer 26 before striking the anvil 28 . the user &# 39 ; s work is converted into kinetic energy of the hammer 26 . this kinetic energy is dissipated when the hammer 26 strikes the anvil 28 and the anvil 28 depresses the patient &# 39 ; s flesh , the kinetic energy is converted into potential energy associated with the depression of the patient &# 39 ; s flesh and heat . the user &# 39 ; s work is balanced by the work f p d p expended by the patient &# 39 ; s body which resists the anvil 28 with a force f p over a distance d p . thus , the effective force applied by the anvil 28 to the patient &# 39 ; s body is given by f p =( d h / d p ) f 1 . the ratio ( d h / d p ) of the distance traveled by the hammer ( d h ) to the distance traveled by the patient &# 39 ; s flesh ( d p ) is typically greater than three and consequently the percussor 22 described herein typically has a force - multiplying effect . for example , a user &# 39 ; s force of 10 lbs is typically experienced as a force of 30 lbs or more by a patient . a second embodiment of the percussor 22 is shown in fig4 - 6 . it also consists of a hammer 26 and an anvil 28 . the design details for the second embodiment are shown in the sectional views of fig5 and 6 , the hammer 26 consists of a plastic structural body 50 in which is embedded a core 52 made of a magnetic material such as iron . the anvil 28 consists of a plastic body 54 in which is embedded coil 34 which surrounds core 52 when the hammer 26 is inserted into the anvil 28 . as in the first embodiment , the hammer 26 has a force receiving surface 42 and a force delivering surface 44 , and the anvil 28 also has a force receiving surface 46 and a force delivering surface 48 , if there is no current flowing through the coil 34 , the hammer 26 is free to slide back and forth within the anvil 28 but limited in range by three pins ( not shown ) anchored into the curved wail of the anvil 28 and terminating in three vertical grooves ( not shown ) spaced 120 degrees apart in hammer 26 . when a current flows through the coil 34 it generates a magnetic field which exerts a force on core 52 causing hammer 26 and anvil 28 to assume the positions shown in fig , 5 . in operation , the percussor 22 is paced against the back or chest of a patient with the force delivering surface 48 of the anvil 28 in contact with the patient &# 39 ; s body , the user holds the percussor 22 in place by gripping the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 with one hand , palm on top , and then turns on the power , as described above , the force continually applied by the user to the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 is converted into repeated impacts of force on the patient &# 39 ; s body through the force delivering surface 48 of the anvil 28 as current impulses pass through the coil 34 , each time the current impulse through the coil 34 is ceased , the force delivering surface 44 of the hammer 26 impacts the force receiving surface 46 of the anvil 28 . each such impact delivers the force through the anvil 28 to the force delivering surface 48 . the force associated with each impulse is significantly greater than the force being applied by the user to the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 on a continuing basis , let us again assume that a user places the percussor 22 against a patient &# 39 ; s back in the gentlest possible way and coil 34 is energized by a series of current pukes . hammer 26 and anvil 28 will assume the positions shown in hg . 5 and remain in those positions for as long as the technician does not apply a force to force - receiving surface 42 , again assume that the technician begins to apply a force to force --- receiving surface 42 while the coil 34 is energized with a current puke . nothing happens because the magnetic force holding hammer 26 and anvil 28 in the relative positions of hg . 5 is typically greater than any force that can be manually applied by a user . when the current puke ends , the magnetic force opposing the force applied by the user disappears and the force - delivering surface 44 of the hammer 26 strikes the force - receiving surface 46 of the anvil 28 as shown in hg , 6 , the hammer 26 thereby delivers a considerably greater force to the patient &# 39 ; s back with which the anvil 28 it is in contact , as discussed above . as long as the user maintains a force on the hammer 26 , the impacting process repeats with each current puke supplied to coil 34 , a schematic of the puke generator required to drive the coil 34 is shown in hg . 7 , it preferably operates with standard 120 v ac input power and has means for controlling the frequency and amplitude , i . e ., widths and rate of repetition , of the output pukes . the self - applicator 24 consists of two substantially co - extensive straps having a pouch configured to accept and securely retain the percussor 22 . fig8 through 10 illustrate the self - applicator 24 along with its various components . the self - applicator 24 has a pair of straps 56 , 58 being substantially co - extensive with one overlaying the other . the respective ends of the straps 56 a , 58 a and 56 b , 58 b are stitched 60 together or joined by any securing means know to those skilled in the art . one of the straps 56 is preferably slightly longer that the other strap 58 such that when the ends of the first strap 56 a , 56 b are joined to the ends of the second strap 58 a , 58 b , there is an open area 62 between the two straps 56 , 58 . preferably , the stitching 60 or other securing means is applied a second time 60 a for added securement . a pouch 64 is disposed in the open area 62 between the straps 56 , 58 . the pouch 64 may be in the form of a u - shaped pocket having a bottom 66 , upright sides 68 a , 68 b and an open top 70 . the pouch 64 in configured and designed to accept the percussor 22 through the open top 70 and securely retain the percussor 22 therein . front and back edges 72 a , 72 b of the pouch 64 are in contact with inside surfaces 56 c , 58 c of the straps 56 , 58 . at least one of the front and back edges 72 a , 72 b are attached to the inside surfaces 56 c , 58 c so as to securely retain the pouch 64 in the open area 62 . preferably , both front and back edges 72 a , 72 b are attached to the inside surfaces 56 c , 58 c . the pouch 64 also includes a closure mechanism 74 designed to cover the open top 70 . the closure mechanism 74 preferably comprises a pair of adjustable hook and loop straps 74 a , 74 b . the straps 74 a , 74 b preferably have essentially their entire mating surfaces covered by hook and loop material , i . e ., velcro ®, whereby the respective straps 74 a , 74 b can be adhered to each other at any point along their length . the closure mechanism 74 can also comprise snaps , buttons , a zipper , or other commonly known methods of closure . a pair of handles 76 , 78 are secured to the respective ends 56 a / 58 a , 56 b / 58 b of the straps 56 , 58 . the ends 76 a , 78 a of the handles 76 , 78 are preferably secured between the ends 56 a / 58 a , 56 b / 58 b of the straps 56 , 58 when they are stitched 60 together . at least one of the straps 78 includes an adjustable length harness 80 so that the length of the handle 78 may be changed to accommodate users of different sizes . each of the handles 76 , 78 include respective grips 76 b , 78 b for a user 82 to grasp in each of his / her hands 84 . the second strap 58 includes an applicator surface 58 d that is configured to contact the back 86 of a user 82 when the self - applicator system 20 is being applied . the application surface 58 d is aligned with the inside surface 58 c at the point where the pouch 64 is disposed or secured . the applicator surface 58 d preferably comprises a soft , comfortable material that will not irritate a user &# 39 ; s skin and can easily and smoothly move during use . the applicator surface 58 d may even include padding to provide comfort to the user . the method of using the system 20 begins with arranging the self - applicator 24 on a surface such that the pouch 64 is oriented with the open top 70 pointing upwards . a user then inserts the percussor 22 into the open top 70 of the pouch 64 . the percussor 22 is positioned in the pouch 64 such that the anvil 28 on the percussor 22 is pointed toward the inside surface 58 c of the second strap 58 . the closure mechanism 74 is secured around the percussor 22 so as to securely retain the percussor 22 in the pouch 64 in a manner that does not allow rotation , revolution or other similar movements during use . if necessary , the user 82 can adjust the length of the adjustable length harness 80 to make the system 20 more comfortable to use . the user 82 then grasps each of the handles 76 , 78 in his or her hands 84 and self - applies the application surface 58 d to his / her back 86 . as illustrated in fig1 and 12 , the self - applicator 24 spans the user &# 39 ; s back 86 with the user &# 39 ; s hand 84 in front of his / her body , pulling the handles 76 , 78 forward to apply force to the force receiving surface 42 of the hammer 26 and resultant pressure to the back 86 . the user 82 then turns on the percussor 22 with the results as described above . by moving ones hand 84 up / down and side / side , the user 82 can self - apply the percussor 22 to almost any area of his / her back 86 . by aligning the anvil 28 of the percussor 22 with the application surface 58 d , the user is able to keep the anvil 28 in contact with the user &# 39 ; s back 86 without the need for a treatment technician or the aid of any other person . the user can also more easily self - apply the percussor 22 to those parts of his / her back 86 that are most beneficial for the loosening or dislodging of bronchial secretions in the lungs , rather than try and describe to another person where to apply the percussor 22 . except for the applicator surface 58 d , described above , the self - applicator 24 and its various components are made from a sturdy , durable material such as nylon or similar polymer material . the goal in selecting a material is to make sure that the self - applicator 24 is comfortable for the user while still being durable enough to withstand the stresses of self - application and the movement of the percussor 22 . the grips 76 b , 78 b preferably comprise a soft , durable polymer material such as polyurethane , latex , or similar materials , molded to form hand grips 76 b , 78 b . fig1 through 18 illustrate a particularly preferred embodiment of the percussor 90 of the present invention . from the outside , the percussor 90 consists of a rear cover or hand hold 92 , an anvil 94 and an intervening thermal shell 96 . inside of the thermal shell 96 is a housing 98 , which encloses a solenoid 100 . the solenoid 100 comprises an internal shell 102 containing a central shaft 104 upon which is mounted a plunger 106 . the plunger 106 may be shaped as a cylinder with recessed cavities at its upper 106 a and lower 106 b ends . the plunger 106 may also be presented in other shapes so as to conform to adjacent parts as described below . the plunger 106 is made from magnetic material as the ring 36 or core 52 described above . a coil 108 surrounds the shaft 104 and plunger 106 and exerts magnetic forces thereon when energized . the bottom of the shell 102 contains a front wall 110 that includes an upward extending base 112 that generally matches the shape of the recess in the lower end 106 b of the plunger 106 . the front wall 110 also includes a central opening 114 through which the shaft 104 extends . one end 104 b of the shaft 104 protrudes through the front wall 110 and is connected to the anvil 94 by a screw 116 or similar securement mechanism . as the shaft 104 slides through the shell 102 , the anvil 94 follows . the top of the shell 102 contains a rear support bearing 118 secured thereto . the rear support bearing 118 has a lower surface that generally conforms to the shape of the recess of the upper end 106 a of the plunger 106 . the rear support bearing 118 also includes a central opening 120 through which the shaft 104 extends . the central opening 114 of the front wall 110 and the central opening 120 of the rear support bearing 118 cooperate to keep the shaft 104 in straight line , oscillating movement through the shell 102 . the rear cover 92 provides a hand hold for a user to grasp the percussor 90 . in the terms of the previously described embodiment , the upper surface of the rear cover 92 provides a force receiving surface 122 of the hammer 124 . the force delivering surface 126 of the hammer 124 is located at the bottom of the housing 98 . the anvil 94 includes a force receiving surface 128 that receive impacts from the force delivering surface 126 of the hammer 124 . the anvil 94 also includes a force delivering surface 130 . these surfaces 122 , 126 , 128 and 130 interact as described above in the earlier embodiment . as shown in fig1 a , the front wall 110 includes set screw openings 132 around its perimeter . these set screw openings 132 are configured to receive set screws through the wall of the shell 102 so as to secure the front wall 110 thereto . the upper surface of the upward extending base 112 includes bumpers 134 . the bumpers 134 are configured to cushion the impact between the plunger 106 and the base 112 when the coil 108 is energized . this cushioning is only intended to make the impact less jarring or noise generating — it does not lessen the force of any impact . the thermal shell 96 is configured to insulate the user against heat generating by the oscillations of the solenoid 100 when the percussor 90 is in use . the thermal shell 96 provides an air gap 136 between the thermal shell 96 and the housing 98 . in addition , the rear cover 92 houses the pulse generator 138 as discussed above , as well as a cooling fan 140 . the pulse generator 138 is connected to the coil 108 . as the pulse generator 138 energizes the coil 108 , electricity is also supplied to the cooling fan 140 , which draws air through the housing 98 and out the exhaust vents 142 to provide additional cooling . the percussor 90 of this alternate embodiment may also be used with the self - applicator 24 . the percussor 90 may fit within the pouch 64 as described above . although the system 20 has been described in detail for purposes of illustration , various modifications may be made without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention . the above - described disclosure is not intended to limit the scope of the invention . accordingly , the scope of the present invention is determined only by the following claims .	0
it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that although the following detailed description will proceed with reference being made to embodiments and methods of use , the present invention is not intended to be limited to these embodiments and methods of use . rather , the present invention is of broad scope and is intended to be limited as only set forth in the accompanying claims . while not wishing to be bound by example , the following detailed description will proceed with reference to a ccfl panel as the load for the circuit of the present invention . however , it will be apparent that the present invention is not limited only to driving one or ccfls , rather , the present invention should be broadly construed as a power converter circuit and methodology independent of the particular load for a particular application . accordingly , embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide a improved system for driving a load and obtain a improved operation for various lcd panel loads , thereby the reliability of the system can be enhanced . in one embodiment , a dc / ac converter circuit for controllably delivering power to a load , includes an input voltage source , a first plurality of overlapping switches and a second plurality of overlapping switches selectively coupled to the voltage source . the first plurality of overlapping switches define a first conduction path , and the second plurality of overlapping switches define a second conduction path . a pulse generator is provided to generate a pulse signal . drive circuitry receives the pulse signal and controls the conduction state of the first and second plurality of switches . the dc / ac converter circuit also includes a transformer includes a transformer having a primary side and a secondary side . the primary side is selectively coupled to the voltage source in an alternating fashion through the first conduction path and , alternately , through the second conduction path . a load is coupled to the secondary side of the transformer . a feedback loop circuit is provided between the load and the drive circuitry and supplies a feedback signal indicative of power being supplied to the load . the drive circuitry alternates the conduction state of the first and second plurality of switches , and controls the overlap time of the switches in the first plurality of switches and the overlap time of the switches in the second plurality of switches , in order to couple the voltage source to the primary side based at least in part on the feedback signal and the pulse signal . the drive circuitry is constructed to generate a first complimentary pulse signal from the pulse signal , and a ramp signal from the pulse signal . the pulse signal is supplied to a first one of the first plurality of switches to control the conduction state thereof , and the ramp signal is compared with at least the feedback signal to generate a second pulse signal . a controllable conduction overlap condition exists between the conduction states of the first and second switches of the first plurality of switches . the second pulse signal is supplied to a second one of the first plurality of switches to control the conduction state thereof . the drive circuitry further generates a second complimentary pulse signal based on the second pulse signal . the first and second complimentary pulse signals control the conduction states of a first switch and a second switch of the second of the second plurality of switches , respectively . likewise , a controllable conduction overlap condition exists between the conduction states of the first and second switches of the second plurality of switches . the present invention also provides a method for controlling a zero - voltage switching circuit to deliver power to a load . in one embodiment , the method includes supplying a dc voltage source , coupling a first and a second transistors defining a first conduction path and a third and a fourth transistors defining a second conduction path to the voltage source and a primary side of a transformer , generating a pulse signal having a predetermined pulse width , coupling a load to a secondary side of the transformer , generating a feedback signal from the load , and controlling the feedback signal and the pulse signal to determine the conduction states of the first , second , third and fourth transistors . in the first embodiment , the present invention provides a converter circuit for delivering power to a ccfl load , which includes a voltage source , a transformer having a primary side and a secondary side , a first pair of switches and a second pair of switches defining a first and second conduction path , respectively , between the voltage source and the primary side , a ccfl load circuit coupled to the secondary side , a pulse generator generating a pulse signal , a feedback circuit coupled to the load for generating a feedback signal , and drive circuitry for receiving the pulse signal and the feedback signal and coupling the first pair of switches or the second pair of switches to the voltage source and the source and the primary side based on the pulse signal and the feedback signal to deliver power to the ccfl load . additionally , the first embodiment provides a pulse generator that generates a pulse signal having a predetermined frequency . the drive circuitry includes the first , second , third and fourth drive circuits . the first pair of switches includes the first and second transistors , and the second pair of switches includes the third and fourth transistors . the first , second , third and fourth drive circuits are connected to the control lines of the first , second , third and fourth transistors , respectively . the pulse signal is supplied to the first drive circuit so that the first transistor is switched in accordance with the pulse signal . the third drive circuit generates a first complimentary pulse signal and a ramp signal based on the pulse signal , and supplies the first complimentary pulse signal to the third transistor so that the third transistor is switched in accordance with the first complimentary pulse signal . the ramp signal and the feedback signal are compared to generate a second pulse signal . the second pulse signal is supplied to the second drive circuit so that the second transistor is switched in accordance with the second pulse signal . the forth driving circuit generates a second complementary pulse signal based on the second pulse signal and supplies the second complementary pulse signal to the fourth transistor so that the fourth transistor is switched in accordance with the second complimentary pulse signal . in one embodiment , the simultaneous conduction of the first and second transistors , and the simultaneous conduction of the third and fourth transistors , respectively , controls the amount of power delivered to the load . the pulse signal and the second pulse signal are generated to overlap by a controlled amount , thus delivering power to the load along the first conduction path . since the first and second complementary pulse signals are generated from the pulse signal and second pulse signal respectively , the first and second complementary pulse signals are also generated to overlap by a controlled amount to deliver power to the load along the second conduction path . as such , power is delivered to the load in an alternating fashion between the first and second conduction paths . also , the pulse signal and first complementary pulse signal are generated to be approximately 180 ° out of phase , and the second pulse signal and the second complementary signal are generated to be approximately 180 ° out of phase , so that a short circuit condition between the first and second conduction paths can be avoided . in addition to the converter circuit provided in the first embodiment , the second embodiment includes a flip - flop circuit coupled to the second pulse signal , which triggers the second pulse signal to the second drive signal only when the third transistor is switched into a conducting state . additionally , the second embodiment includes a phase - lock loop ( pll ) circuit having a first input signal from the primary side and a second input signal using the feedback signal . the pll circuit compares the phase difference between these two signals and supplies a control signal to the pulse generator to control the pulse width of the pulse signal based on the phase difference between the first and second inputs . in both embodiments , the converter circuit includes the feedback control loop having a first comparator for comparing a reference signal with the feedback signal and producing a first output signal . a second comparator is provided for comparing the first output signal with the ramp signal and producing the second pulse signal based on the intersection of the first output signal and the ramp signal . the feedback circuit can also include a current sense circuit receiving the feedback signal and generating a trigger signal , and a switch circuit between the first and second comparator . the switch circuit receives the trigger signal and generates either the first output signal or a predetermined minimum signal , based on the value of the trigger signal . the reference signal can include , for example , a signal that is manually generated to indicate a desires power to be delivered to the load . the predetermined minimum voltage signal can include a programmed minimum voltage supplied to the switches , so that an over - voltage condition does not appear across the load . likewise , in both embodiments described herein , an over - current protection circuit that receives the feedback signal and controls the pulse generator based on the value of said feedback signal can be included . an over - voltage protection can be provided to receive a voltage signal from across the load and the first output signal and compare the voltage signal from across the load and the first output signal , to control the pulse generator based on the value of the voltage signal from across the load . as an overview , the present invention provides circuitry to controllably deliver power to a load using feedback signals and pulse signals to adjust the on time of two pairs of switches . when one pair of switches are controllably turned on such that their on times overlap , power is delivered to a load ( via a transformer ), along a conduction path defined by the pair of switches . likewise , when the other pair of switches are controllably turned on such that their on times overlap , power is delivered to a load ( via a transformer ), along a conduction path defined by other pair of switches . thus , by selectively turning on switches and controlling the overlap between - switches , the present invention can control power delivered to a given load in a relatively precise way . additionally , the present invention includes over - current and over - voltage protection circuits , which discontinues power to the load in the event of a short circuit or open circuit condition . moreover , the controlled switching topology described herein enables the circuit to operate irrespective of the load , and with a single operating frequency independent of the resonant effects of the transformer arrangement . these features are discussed below with reference to the drawings . the circuit diagram shown in fig2 illustrates one embodiment of a phase - shift , full - bridge , zero - voltage - switching power converter of the present invention . essentially , the circuit shown in fig2 includes a power source 12 , a plurality of switches 80 arranged as diagonal pairs of switches defining alternating conduction paths , drive circuitry 50 for driving each of the switches , a frequency sweeper 22 which generates a square wave pulse to the drive circuitry 50 , a transformer tx 1 ( with an associated resonant tank circuit defined by the primary side of tx 1 and c 1 ) and a load . advantageously , the present invention also includes an overlap feedback control loop 40 which controls the on time of at least one of each pair of switches , thereby permitting controllable power to be delivered to the load . a power source 12 is applied to the system . initially , a bias / reference signal 30 is generated for the control circuitry ( in control loop 40 ) from the supply . for example , a frequency sweeper 22 generates a 50 % duty - cycle pulse signal , starting with an upper frequency and sweeping downwards at a pre - determined rate and at pre - determined steps ( i . e ., square wave signal of variable pulse width ). the frequency sweeper 22 can be a programmable frequency generator , as is known in the art . the pulse signal 90 ( from the sweeper 22 ) is delivered to b_drive ( which drives the switch_b , i . e ., controls the gate of switch_b ), and is delivered to a_drive , which generates a complementary pulse signal 92 and a ramp signal 26 . the complementary pulse signal 92 is approximately 180 ° out of phase with pulse signal 90 , and the ramp signal 26 is approximately 90 ° out of phase with pulse signal , as will be described below . the ramp signal can be a sawtooth signal , as shown in the figure . the ramp signal 26 is compared with the output signal 24 ( referred to herein as cmp ) of the error amplifier 32 , through comparator 28 , thus generating signal 94 . the output signal 94 of the comparator 28 is likewise a 50 % duty pulse delivered to c_drive to initiate the turning on of switch_c which , in turn , determines the amount of overlap between the switches b and c , and switches a and d . its complimentary signal ( phased approximately 180 °) is applied to switch_d , via d_drive . it will be understood by those skilled in the art that circuits drive_a - drive_d are connected to the control lines ( e . g ., gate ) of switch_a - switch_d , respectively , which permits each of the switches to controllably conduct , as described herein . by adjusting the amount of overlap between switches b , c and a , d , lamp - current regulation is achieved . in other words , it is the amount of overlapping in the conduction state of the pairs of switches that determines the amount of power processed in the converter . hence , switches b and c , and switches a and d , will be referred to herein as overlapping switches . while not wishing to be bound by example , in this embodiment , b_drive can be formed of a totem pole circuit , generic low - impedance op - amp circuit , or emitter follower circuit . c_drive is likewise constructed . since both a - drive and d_drive are not directly connected to ground ( i . e ., floating ), in one embodiment , these drives are formed of a boot - strap circuit , or other high - side drive circuitry known in the art . additionally , as stated above , a_drive and d_drive include an inverter to invert ( i . e ., phase ) the signal flowing from b_drive and c_drive , respectively . high - efficiency operation is achieved through a zero - voltage - switching technique . the four mosfets ( switch_a - switch_d ) 80 are turned on after their intrinsic diodes ( d 1 - d 4 ) conduct , which provides a current flowing path of energy in the transformer / capacitor ( tx 1 / c 1 ) arrangement , thereby ensuring that a zero voltage is across the switches when they are turned on . with this controlled operation , switching loss is minimized and high efficiency is maintained . the switching operation of the overlapping switches 80 is shown with reference to the timing diagrams of fig2 a - fig2 f . switch_c is turned off at certain period of the conduction of both switches b and c ( fig2 f ). the current flowing in the tank ( refer to fig2 ) is now flowing through diode d 4 ( fig2 e ) in switch_d , the primary of transformer , c 1 , and switch_b , after switch_c is turned off , thereby resonating the voltage and current in capacitor c 1 and the transformer as a result of the energy delivered when switches b and c were conducting ( fig2 f ). note that this condition must occur , since an instantaneous change in current direction of the primary side of the transformer would violate faraday &# 39 ; s law . thus , current must flow through d 4 when switch_c turns off . switch_d is turned on after d 4 has conducted . similarly , switch_b is turned off ( fig2 a ), the current diverts to diode d 1 associated with switch_a before switch_a is turned on ( fig2 e ). likewise , switch_d is turned off ( fig2 d ), and the current is now flowing now from switch_a , through c 1 , the transformer primary and diode d 3 . switch_c is turned on after d 3 has conducted ( fig2 e ). switch_b is turned on after switch_a is turned off which allows the diode d 2 to conduct first before it is turned on . note that the overlap of turn - on time of the diagonal switches b , c and a , d determines the energy delivered to the transformer , as shown in fig2 f . in this embodiment , fig2 b shows that the ramp signal 26 is generated only when switch_a is turned on . accordingly , drive_a , which generates the ramp signal 26 , can include a constant current generator circuit ( not shown ) that includes a capacitor having an appropriate time constant to create the ramp signal . to this end , a reference current ( not shown ) is utilized to charge the capacitor , and the capacitor is grounded ( via , for example a transistor switch ) so that the discharge rate exceeds the charge rate , thus generating the sawtooth ramp signal 26 . of course , as noted above , this can be accomplished by integrating the pulse signal 90 , and thus , the ramp signal 26 can be formed using an integrator circuit ( e . g ., op - amp and capacitor ). in the ignition period , a pre - determined minimum overlap between the two diagonal switches is generated ( i . e ., between switches a , d and b , c ). this gives a minimum energy from the input to the tank circuit including c 1 , transformer , c 2 , c 3 and the ccfl load . note that the load can be resistive and / or capacitive . the drive frequency starts at a predetermined upper frequency until it approaches the resonant frequency of the tank circuit and equivalent circuit reflected by the secondary side of the transformer , a significant amount of energy is delivered to the load where the ccfl is connected . due to its high - impedance characteristics characteristics before ignition , the ccfl is subjected to high voltage from the energy supplied to the primary side . this voltage is sufficient to ignite the ccfl . the ccfl impedance decreases to its normal operating value ( e . g ., about 100 kohm to 130 kohm ), and the energy supplied to the primary side based on the minimum - overlap operation is no longer sufficient to sustain a steady state operation of the ccfl . the output of the error amplifier 26 starts its regulating function to increase the overlap . it is the level of the error amplifier output determines the amount of the overlap . referring to fig2 b and fig2 c and the feedback loop 40 of fig2 , it is important to note that switch_c is turned on when the ramp signal 26 ( generated by drive_a ) is equal to the value of signal cmp 24 ( generated by error amplifier 32 ), determined in comparator 28 . this is indicated as the intersection point 36 in fig2 b . to prevent a short circuit , switches a , b and c , d must never be on simultaneously . by controlling the cmp level , the overlap time between switches a , d and b , c regulates the energy delivered to the transformer . to adjust the energy delivered to the transformer ( and thereby adjust the energy delivered to the ccfl load ), switches c and d are time - shifted with respect to switches a and b , by controlling the error amplifier output , cmp 24 . as can be understood by the timing diagrams , if the driving pulses from the output of comparator 28 into switches c and d are shifted to the right by increasing the level of cmp , an increase in the overlap between switches a , c and b , d is realized , thus increasing the energy delivered to the transformer . in practice , this corresponds to the to the higher - lamp current operation . conversely , shifting the driving pulses of switches c and d to the left ( by decreasing the cmp signal ) decreases the energy delivered . to this end , error amplifier 32 compares the feedback signal fb with a reference voltage ref . fb is a measure of the current value through the sense resistor rs , which is indicative of the total current through the load 20 . ref is a signal indicative of the desired load conditions , e . g ., the desired current to flow through the load . during normal operation , ref = fb . if , however , load conditions are intentionally offset , for example , from a dimmer switch associated with an lcd panel display , the value of ref will increase / decrease accordingly . the compared value generates cmp accordingly . the value of cmp is reflective of the load conditions and / or an intentional bias , and is realized as the difference between ref and fb ( i . e ., ref - fb ). to protect the load and circuit from an open circuit condition at the load ( e . g ., open ccfl lamp condition during normal operation ), the fb signal can also be compared to a reference value ( not shown and different from the ref signal described above ) at the current sense comparator 42 , the output of which defines the condition of switch 28 , discussed below . this reference value can be programmable , and / or user - definable , and reflects the minimum or maximum current permitted by the system ( for example , as may be rated for the individual components , and , in particular , the ccfl load ). if the value of the feedback fb signal and the reference signal is within a permitted range ( normal operation ), the output of the current sense comparator is 1 ( or , high ). this permits cmp to flow through switch 38 , and the circuit operates as described herein to deliver power to the load . if , however , the value of the fb signal and the reference signal is outside a predetermined range ( open circuit or short circuit condition ), the output of the current sense comparator is 0 ( or , low ), prohibiting the cmp signal from flowing through the switch 38 . ( of course , the reverse can be true , in which the switch triggers on a low condition ). instead a minimal voltage vmin is supplied by switch 38 ( not shown ) and applied to comparator 28 until the current sense comparator indicates permissible current flowing through rs . accordingly , switch 38 includes appropriate programmable voltage selection vmin for when the sense current is 0 . turning again to fig2 b , the effect of this operation is a lowering of the cmp dc value to a nominal , or minimum value ( i . e ., cmp = vmin ) so that a high voltage condition is not appearing on the transformer tx 1 . thus , the crossover point 36 is shifted to the left , thereby decreasing the amount of overlap between complementary switches ( recall switch_c is turned on at the intersection point 36 ). likewise , current sense comparator 42 is connected to the frequency generator 22 to turn the generator 22 off when the sense value is 0 ( or some other preset value indicative of an open - circuit condition ). the cmp is fed into the protection circuit 62 . this is to shut off the frequency sweeper 22 if the ccfl is removed during operation ( open - circuit condition ). to protect the circuit from an over - voltage condition , the present embodiment includes a protection circuit 60 , the operation of which is provided below ( the description of the over current protection through the current sense comparator 42 is provided above ). the circuit 60 includes a protection comparator 62 which compares signal cmp with a voltage signal 66 derived from the load 20 . in one embodiment , voltage signal is derived from the voltage divider c 2 and c 3 ( i . e ., in parallel with load 20 ), as shown in fig2 . in the open - lamp condition , the frequency sweeper continues sweeping until the ovp signal 66 reaches a threshold . the ovp signal 62 is taken at the output capacitor divider c 2 and c 3 to detect the voltage at the output of the transformer tx 1 . to simplify the analysis , these capacitors also represent the lump capacitor of the equivalent load capacitance . the threshold is a reference and circuit is being designed so that the voltage at the secondary side of the transformer is greater than the minimum striking voltage ( e . g ., as may be required by the lcd panel ) while less than the rated voltage of the transformer . when ovp exceeds the threshold , the frequency sweeper stops the frequency sweeping . meanwhile , the current - sense 42 detects no signal across the sense resistor rs . therefore the signal at 24 , the output of a switch block 38 , is set to be at minimum value so that minimum overlap between switches a , c and b , d is seen . in one embodiment , a timer 64 is initiated once the ovp exceeds the threshold , thereby initiating a time - out sequence . the duration of the time - out can be designed according to the requirement of the loads ( e . g ., ccfls of an lcd panel ), but could alternately be set at some programmable value . drive pulses are disabled once the time - out is reached , thus providing safe - operation output of the converter circuit . that is , circuit 60 provides a sufficient voltage to ignite the lamp , but will shut off after a certain period if the lamp is not connected to the converter , so that erroneous high voltage is avoided at the output . this duration is necessary since a non - ignited lamp is similar to an open - lamp condition . fig3 and fig3 a - fig3 f depict another embodiment of the dc / ac circuit of the present invention . in this embodiment , the circuit operates in a similar manner as provided in fig2 and fig2 a - fig2 f , however this embodiment further includes a phase lock loop circuit ( pll ) 70 for controlling the frequency sweeper 22 , and a flip - flop circuit 72 to time the input of a signal into c_drive . as can be understood by the timing diagrams , if the 50 % driving pulses of switches c and d are shifted to the right by increasing the level of cmp , an increase in the overlap between switches a , c and b , d is realized , thus increasing the energy delivered to the transformer . in practice , this corresponds to the higher - lamp current operation ( as may be required , e . g ., by a manual increase in the ref voltage , described above ). conversely , shifting the driving pulses of switches c and d to the left ( by decreasing the cmp signal ) decreases the energy delivered . the phase - lock - loop circuit 70 maintains the phase relationship between the feedback current ( through rs ) and tank current ( through tx 1 / c 1 ) during normal operation , as shown in fig3 . the pll circuit 70 can include input signals from the tank circuit ( c 1 and the primary of tx 1 ) signal 98 and rs ( fb signal , described above ). once the ccfl is ignited , and the current in the ccfl is detected through rs , the pll 70 circuit is activated which locks the phase the phase between the lamp current and the current in the primary resonant tank ( c 1 and transformer primary ). that is , the pll is provided to adjust the frequency of the frequency sweeper 22 for any parasitic variations such as temperature effect , mechanical arrangement like wiring between the converter and the lcd panel and distance between the lamp and metal chassis of lcd panel that affect the capacitance and inductance . in one embodiment , the system maintains a phase difference of 180 degrees between the resonant tank circuit and the current through rs ( load current ). thus , irrespective of the particular load conditions and / or the operating frequency of the resonant tank circuit , the system finds an optimal operation point . the operation of the feedback loop of fig3 is similar to the description above for fig2 . however , as shown in fig3 b , this embodiment times the output of an initiating signal through c_drive through flip - flop 72 . for instance , during normal operation , the output of the error amplifier 32 is fed through the controlled switch block 38 ( described above ), resulting in signal 24 . a certain amount of overlap between switches a , c and b , d is seen through comparator 28 and flip - flop 72 which drives switches c and d ( recall d_drive produces the complementary signal of c_drive ). this provides a steady - state operation for the ccfl ( panel ) load . considering the removal of the ccfl ( panel ) during the normal operation , cmp rises to the rail of output of the error amplifier and triggers the protection circuit immediately . this function is inhibited during the ignition period . referring briefly to fig3 a - fig3 f , the triggering of switches c and d , through c - drive and d_drive , is , in this embodiment , alternating as a result of the flip - flop circuit 72 . as is shown in fig3 b , the flip - flop triggers every other time , thereby initiating c_drive ( and , accordingly , d_drive ). the timing otherwise operates in the same way as discussed above with reference to . referring now to fig4 a - fig4 f , the output circuit of fig2 or fig3 is emulated . for example , fig4 a shows that at 21v input , when the frequency sweeper approaches 75 . 7 khz ( 0 . 5 us overlapping ), the output is reaching 1 . 67 kvp - p . this voltage is insufficient to turn on the ccfl if it requires 3300 vp - p to ignite . as the frequency decreases to say 68 khz , the minimum overlap generates about 3 . 9 kvp - p at the output , which is sufficient to ignite the ccfl . this is illustrated in fig4 b . at this frequency , the overlap increases to 1 . 5 us gives output about 1 . 9 kvp - p to operate the 130 kohm lamp impedance . this has been shown in fig4 c . as another example , fig4 d illustrates the operation while the input voltage is 7v . at 71 . 4 khz , output is 750vp - p before the lamp is striking . as the frequency decreases , the output voltage increases until the lamp ignites . fig4 e shows that at 65 . 8 khz , the output reaches 3500vp - p . the regulation of the ccfl current is achieved by adjusting the overlap to support 130 kohm impedance after ignition . the voltage across the ccfl is now 1 . 9 kvp - p for a 660vrms lamp . this is also illustrated in fig4 f . although not shown , the emulation of the circuit of fig3 behaves in a similar manner . it should be noted that the difference between the first and second embodiments ( i . e ., by the addition of the flip flop and the pll in fig3 ) will not effect the overall operational parameters set forth in fig4 a - fig4 f . however , the addition of the pll has been determined to account for non - ideal impedances that develop in the circuit , and may be added as an alternative to the circuit shown in fig2 . also , the addition of the flip - flop permits the removal of the constant current circuit , described above . thus , it is evident that there has been provided a high efficiency adaptive dc / ac converter circuit that satisfies the aims and objectives stated herein . it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that modifications are possible . for example , although the present invention has described the use of mosfets for the switched , those skilled in the art will recognize that the entire circuit can be constructed using bjt transistors , or a mix of any type of transistors , including mosfets and bjts . other modifications are possible . for example , the drive circuitry associated with drive_b and drive_d may be comprised of common - collector type circuitry , since the associated transistors are coupled to ground and are thus not subject to floating conditions . the pll circuit described herein is can be a generic pll circuit 70 , as is known in the art , appropriately modified to accept the input signal and generate the control signal , described above . the pulse generator 22 can be a pulse width modulation circuit ( pwm ) or frequency width modulation circuit ( fwm ), both of which are well known in the art . likewise , the protection circuit 62 and timer are constructed out of known circuits and are appropriately modified to operate as described herein . other circuitry will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art , and all such modifications are deemed within the spirit and scope of the present invention , only as limited by the appended claims .	8
in one aspect , the current method uses a side - stream of a fluid stream under study , at which point the defoamer feed may or may not precede the sample point , to simulate the foaming behavior of that fluid . a side - stream refers to a portion of the process fluid stream having either a continuous or in intermittent flow . for example , the flow rate of a process fluid stream to a flow cell vessel , such as a 20 centimeter diameter sized cylinder , a monitoring and control system may be in the range of from about 3 . 78 liters ( l ) to about 60 liters per minute . however , systems may be smaller or larger , for example , smaller systems may use flow rates as low as 500 milliliters per minute or much larger systems that may use up to 760 liters per minute . fluid refers to any aqueous medium found in water processing plants and papermills . more particularly , the process fluid can have a specific conductance of between 0 . 01 and 130 milliseimens per centimeter ( ms / cm ), a ph in the range of 2 to 14 , suspended solids in the range of from 0 to about 60 %, and total dissolved hardness in the range of 1 to 11 , 000 milligrams per liter ( mg / l ) as calcium carbonate . defoamer refers to classifications of many types of chemicals used either as blends or singularly . defoamers are also known as antifoam , which are used to suppress the foaming behavior of a fluid . in practice , defoamers are comprised of individual compounds or blends of compounds which contain for example , silica , silicone , fatty alcohols , waxes , glycols , oils , ebs , surfactants , hydrocarbons , emulsifiers , fatty esters , alcohols , alcohol ethoxylates , alcohol propoxylates and water . in some aspects of the above methods , the side - stream of process fluid is directed into a foam cell vessel wherein the fluid cascades into the foaming vessel , which entrains air to create a level of foam on the water surface where the foam height is measured with a non - contact optical distance measurement sensor . in other aspects of the above methods , the term “ optical - sensor ” refers to the class of optical measuring devices which work by emitting light , reflecting it off of a surface to be measured and detecting the return of light with a light receiving element called the sensor . the light type that may be used shall be within the wavelength range of 390 to 780 nanometers . these devices go by many names , some are called laser distance sensors , laser measurement sensors , laser range finders , all - purpose laser sensors and the like . there are several types of suitable detection configuration methods for distance measurement which include : triangulation , time of flight , pulsed time of flight , multiple frequency phase - shift , modulated beam , and interferometry . the spot diameter of the light used may be adjustable to improve sensitivity . in other aspects of the current method , the non - contact optical distance measurement sensor ( 16 ) can be a “ reflective model - photoelectric sensor ”. this is a reflective type photoelectric sensor consisting of two elements : a light emitting element and a light receiving element . the photoelectric sensor emits a light beam ( visible or infrared ) from its light emitting element . the light beam is reflected from the surface of a target and received by the light receiving element . the distance from the target surface to light receiving element is determined through triangulation or time of flight ( tof ), depending on the type of receiving element used . in some aspects of the current method , the optical sensor can be an all purpose laser - sensor of 660 nanometer wave length ( red laser ), class 2 , model lr - tb5000 made by keyence . this laser uses time of flight technology and can regulate the feed rate of defoamer being added to the process fluid stream . in some aspects of the current method , the non - contact optical distance measurement sensor in combination with the microprocessor based proportional and integral control loop ( pid loop ), provides for the accurate measurement of accumulating foam in real time and the ability to feed a commensurate amount of defoamer which is proportional to foamability of the fluid system . the method can also use the electronic signal from the optical measuring device , which is proportional to a range of the foam level and consequently controls the defoamer delivered proportionally , or the electronic signal can trigger a digital ( on / off ) signal to the defoamer feed which occurs when the foam level transitions through one or several level set points . a level set point is defined as a specific foam height target which causes a control response which can be any number of actions such as an alarm or an automated increase or decrease in defoamer feed rate . the electronic signal can be also be transferred to a microprocessor that controls or regulates the amount of defoamer delivered to the process fluid stream . or , the electronic signal may be used as a guide to make manual adjustments to the addition of defoamer . it can also be used to regulate a mechanical feeding device directly . the method can use the proportional signal from the optical distance measurement sensor , which may be conditioned with a microprocessor to produce various control strategies with which to modify the feed of the defoamer to strategic points in the process . control strategies include but are not limited to proportional control through proportional - integral - derivative control , also known as pid control , as well as other timed feed strategies . in referring to fig1 , there is provided an outer cylindrical vessel ( 8 ) having an opening or inlet ( 6 ) at the top of the vessel and an outlet ( 12 ) at the bottom or side of the vessel , as long as the discharge of fluid does not affect the level of process fluid in the foam cell vessel ; an inner foaming cup ( 10 ) that is shorter and smaller in diameter than the outer cylindrical vessel ( 8 ) and is suspended from about 1 centimeter ( cm ) to about 20 cm from the bottom of the outer cylindrical vessel ( 8 ). a tube or pipe ( 10 ) is suspended above the foaming cup and extends from the inlet to within about 1 cm to about 25 cm of the bottom of the foaming cup ( 10 ). however , the depth of the tube is dependent upon the velocity of the water flow and the depth of the cup itself . bubbles may form foam as air is entrained at the point where the downward flow of process fluid meets the fluid level in the cup section . the cup fills and the process fluid and foam cascade over the lip of the cup , where foam may accumulate on the fluid surface , which is maintained constant , within the outer vessel . a non - contact optical distance measurement sensor ( 16 ) emits a light signal that is reflected off of the surface of the accumulated foam back to the optical sensor and the signal transferred to a microprocessor ( 19 ). the microprocessor then controls the amount of defoamer delivered to the fluid process . the level of process fluid in the outer cylindrical vessel ( 8 ) in the current process is maintained at a constant level using an overflow ( 14 ), wherein the process fluid flows through an outlet ( 12 ) of the outer cylindrical vessel ( 8 ) through a trap pipe ( 13 ) to an overflow ( 14 ) thereby keeping a constant level of process fluid ( 15 ) in the outer cylindrical vessel . the overflow can be located anywhere on the foam cell vessel as long as it does not disrupt or affect the level of process fluid in the foam cell vessel or the generation of foam . in still other aspects of the current method , the overflow ( 14 ) is the same height as the top of the foaming cup ( 10 ), thereby maintaining the fluid level at the top of the foaming cup ( 10 ) and the accumulating foam being above the rim of the foaming cup . the non - contact optical distance measurement sensor ( 16 ) can then be used to measure the foam height and control defoamer added accordingly . the rate of process fluid flow of the side - stream into the foam cell vessel ( 8 ) can be regulated by the size of the pipe diameter of the inlet line used to transfer the process fluid from the fluid process stream ( 1 ) to the foam cell vessel ( 8 ) or other flow regulating means such as a valve , orifice or fluid pump speed ( 2 ). in some aspects , a nozzle may also be installed on the inlet line to increase the velocity of the inlet water , which in turn entrains more air creating more foam with less water flow . the foam cell vessel can discharge the process fluid from any outlet and the outlet can be at the bottom center of the foam cell vessel . however , as indicated above , the outlet may be located anywhere on the foam cell vessel so long as it does not disrupt the process fluid level being maintained or that it does not carry away the foam which is being accumulated within the vessel . the size of the discharge opening should be of sufficient diameter to cause little to no restriction in flow or elevation of the fluid level in the cell so as to keep the fluid level relatively constant in the foam cell vessel . the fluid in the foam cell vessel may be intermittently charged with the process fluid , which may be subsequently recirculated or looped back into the foam cell vessel , by using for example , a pump , for a period of time until the next recharge cycle . the level of foam within the foaming vessel can be measured with the non - contact optical distance measurement sensor . the non - contact optical distance measurement sensor can then provide a continuous electronic output signal proportional to the level of foam in the foam cell vessel to a microprocessor . the proportional electronic level output signal , may be conditioned with the microprocessor to produce various control strategies with which to modify the feed of defoamer to strategic points in the process . control strategies include but are not limited to proportional control through proportional - integral - derivative ( pid ) control as well as other timed feed strategies and manual response of the feed rate , based on the signal . the rate of flow of the process fluid stream into the foam cell vessel can be controlled by , for example , by the size of the pipe diameter of the side - stream or a flow regulating method such as a flow control valve , orifice , nozzle or fluid pump speed . on / off cyclical flow may be used with recirculation systems , especially in systems which are subject to fouling by debris . the discharge of the process fluid from the foam cell vessel can be directly from the bottom of the vessel , and the outlet of sufficient diameter to cause little to no restriction in flow which can affect the fluid level in the foam cell vessel during normal operation . however , any point of outlet though may be used so long as it does not disrupt the water level being maintained or carry away the foam which is being accumulated within the foam cell vessel . the defoamer can also be fed to the process fluid stream ahead of the sample point for the monitoring and control system . a side - stream of the process fluid is drawn or pumped through a sample line . in some cases , the process fluid can be passed through the foam cell vessel once , or the process fluid can be re - circulated through the vessel as many times or as long as necessary . the materials used in the construction of the components of the foam cell vessel may be made of any suitable rigid material which is compatible with the process fluid . in some aspects of the current methods , the outer or foam cell vessel can be cylindrical , can be square and may be rectangular in shape . rectangular shaped vessels are useful for predicting how foam will accumulate in quiescent areas away from the foam generation site . rectangular vessels can be used for simulating lagoon foam . other configurations are envisioned , such as those wherein the process fluid cascades into the foam cell vessel which maintains a constant fluid level . in yet other aspects of the current method , an aspirator can be installed on the process fluid side - stream . in the current process a constant water level may be achieved by a “ fill and recirculate mode ” wherein a sample of process fluid ( 7 ) is periodically drawn from the side - stream ( 3 ), as needed , using , for example automatically actuated valves ( 5 ), to purge and refill the foam cell vessel , the process fluid in the vessel can be discharged through an overflow / stand pipe ( 14 ), which acts as a trap of the newly drawn fluid , creating a constant fluid level in the cylinder or foam cell vessel ( 8 ) each time the unit undergoes an operation cycle . the discharge can also be accomplished by different means such as using automatically actuated valves . this method works well when there are foulants and debris in the fluid which would otherwise become trapped behind a flow throttling valve or orifice . as a result , larger transfer lines and fully open valve positions may be used . the fluid level in the foam cell can also be maintained constant when a flow of the side - stream is drawn , as needed , and flows once - through the vessel and discharges through a line looping back up from the bottom of the outer or foam cell vessel through a stand pipe , creating a trap . the foam cell vessel can be 20 centimeters and the discharge or outlet and overflow pipe may be in the size range of from a minimum of 2 centimeters diameter and larger . different size cylinders , plumbing or vessels may be designed to suit the fluid characteristics of different processes . in general the outlet ( 12 ), trap pipe ( 13 ) and overflow ( 14 ) should be of sufficient diameter so as not to restrict the natural fluid flow thereby creating a substantially elevated fluid level . in some aspects of the above methods , a recirculation loop may be added . recirculation can be useful if the flow rate of the process fluid of the side - stream is insufficient to entrain air . recirculation is also useful when the process fluid is drawn periodically at excessive flow and minor restriction to avoid line plugging by foulants and debris . in other aspects of the methods , an optical distance sensor located above the foam cell continuously measures the foam level and converts the level into a proportional electronic level output signal . in yet other aspects , the device and method can further comprise one or more temperature , ph and conductivity sensors or probes . the device and method can also include , for example , a dehumidifying device used to control condensation in the sensing area . the device and method can also include other sensors and devices to account for weather related elements that can affect the accumulation of foam in various water systems , such as the intensity of ambient sunlight , temperature , humidity , dewpoint , rainfall , and barometric pressure . in some aspects of the above methods , during the initial set up , the monitoring and control system is calibrated to simulate the behavior of the fluid process under study by noting what level of foam height in the foam cell vessel corresponds to the maximum tolerable foam level in the process fluid stream . that level is then used to set the target control level set point of the microprocessor component of the control system . as the foam level in the foam cell vessel increases the microprocessor compares it to the distance from the set point and proportionally increases the defoamer feed rate to the process fluid stream so as to drive the foam level down . should the foam level measured be below the set point , the controller systematically reduces the defoamer feed rate to allow foam to rise to the set point level . the methods described above can be used in most fluid process streams which experience foaming and would benefit from monitoring and controlling the amount of defoamer or other additives being added to the system . some examples include , flumes , trenches , tanks , ponds , pipelines , collection tanks , water chests , ponds and lagoons associated with food processing plants , pulp mills , paper mills , fermenters , and chemical plants . other operations , include aerated tanks and basins associated with wastewater treatment systems , from collection systems through effluent pipes and flumes , including aerated activated sludge systems , in both industrial and municipal applications . anaerobic and thermophilic digester type wastewater treatment systems are also candidates . washing operations in pulp mills , food processing , algae processing , and mineral processing applications can all benefit . it may also be useful to control defoamer feed in open recirculating cooling water systems and process fluid cooling towers . these methods would also be useful to control the dosages of foam causing additives such as frothing agents in a large variety of industrial processes , including but not limited to , mineral processing applications such as ore floatation and segregation , as well as deinking in paper recycling applications . a wastewater treatment plant of an integrated pulp and paper mill will generally experience problematic levels of highly foam forming substances such as surfactants , black liquor , soap and foul condensate , which find their way into the sewer system frequently , unpredictably , and in various quantities . at the mill selected for the trial the wastewater flows by gravity from the primary clarifier outlet where the defoamer is added to a pump sump where three large pumps transfer the water uphill to a cooling tower which serves to cool the wastewater for the next stage in the treatment process . foam formation problems have , in the past , expressed themselves on the surface of the pump sump , top of the cooling tower and cooling tower sump . a defoamer is fed to wastewater treatment system at the outlet of the primary clarifier and the feed rate is adjusted approximately twice daily when the treatment plant operator makes his rounds . normally if there is a high level of foam found during a spot in time that day , the defoamer feed rate is increased to as high as 100 % and remains at that level until the next 12 hour shift . the current method was used wherein a continuous side - stream sample of wastewater was drawn from the cooling tower feed pump at a discharge rate of 26 . 5 liters per minute . for infrequent periods when the mill has plastic in the wastewater stream , a course ¼ inch mesh basket strainer was installed in the feed line to prevent pluggage of the flow control valve . the waste water entered the foam cell vessel through a nozzle that directed the waste water into the center of a tube that extended into the foam cell vessel and was surrounded by an upward facing cup . as the wastewater hit the water level maintained by the cup , a mixture of air bubbles and water was generated and resulted in accumulation of foam on the surface of the water level within the foam cell vessel wherein the water level was kept constant . the path of the waste water side - stream was through the top of the foam cell vessel , reversing direction twice within the foam cell vessel . the downward force of the side stream of water entering the vessel and hitting the surface of the water in the inner cup , entrained air created a mix of water and air bubbles which flowed upward over the lip of the inner cup to the top the foam cell vessel , resulting in an accumulation of foam on the water surface around the inner perimeter of the vessel . the water level in the foam cell vessel was maintained constant while the foam level on top of the water was variable . the elevation of the wastewater level was maintained constant and in the proximity of the lip of the cup by a drain in the bottom of the foam cell vessel that was integrated with an external oversized standpipe that created a “ u ” shaped water flow path out of which water finally overflowed to drain . a keyence model lr - tb5000 series all - purpose laser sensor was positioned over the foam cell and tracked the foam level within it . the laser - sensor continuously produced an electrical output signal which was proportional to the distance of the foam level to the laser - sensor . the output signal was sent to a microprocessor where it was conditioned to reduce noise , scaled to the desired range of measurement evaluated , inverted , and finally used as a process variable in a proportional and integral control loop ( pid ) which controlled the output of the defoamer pump . the defoamer pump fed defoamer to the outfall of the primary clarifier where it was mixed with the waste water prior to the side - stream of waste water being diverted to the foam cell vessel . the foam level was monitored and controlled within a narrow range of 61 cm to 76 cm from the laser - sensor : this resulted in a total range of 0 to 15 centimeters of total foam . during this period of time the defoamer pump ranged from 20 % to 80 % output to control the foam level at a target of 71 centimeters from the sensor . we were able to control the foam level in the target range with the proportional defoamer feed rate .	6
the invention can be implemented in numerous ways , including as a process , an apparatus , a system , a composition of matter , a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computer network wherein program instructions are sent over optical or electronic communication links . in this specification , these implementations , or any other form that the invention may take , may be referred to as techniques . a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task includes both a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task . in general , the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention . a detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention . the invention is described in connection with such embodiments , but the invention is not limited to any embodiment . the scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives , modifications and equivalents . numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention . these details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details . for the purpose of clarity , technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured . creating and validating digital signatures for multiple encodings are disclosed . in some embodiments , creating a digital signature for a document includes computing a signature for two or more encodings of the document information . the signatures are labeled and packaged together as a multiple encoding signature . when a document with a multiple encoding signature is validated , a signature corresponding to the encoding of the document is located within the multiple encoding signature and used to validate the document . the document can be converted into another encoding for which a corresponding signature exists in the multiple encoding signature and still have a valid multiple encoding signature . if no exact signature corresponding to the encoding of the document is found , the document can be canonicalized before signature validation . fig1 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a multiple encoding signature creation . in the example shown , three different xdp encodings , 102 , 104 , and 106 , and three different pdf encodings , 108 , 110 , and 112 , for a document are shown as encodings associated with multiple encoding signature 124 . for example , difference between the different encodings of xdp or pdf can be due to different encoding versions and / or different ordering of data within the document . any encoding used to encode data can be associated with multiple encoding signature 124 , including any encoding variations on xdp encoding , xml encoding , binary xml encoding , and pdf encoding . any number of encodings can be associated with multiple encoding signature 124 . the encodings associated with multiple encoding signature 124 can be preconfigured or dynamically configured . xdp ′″ encoding 102 , xdp ″ encoding 104 , and xdp &# 39 ; encoding 106 is canonicalized as xdp encoding 114 . any encoding variation or any number of encodings can be canonicalized into a common canonical form . in generating multiple encoding signature 124 , a hash of various encodings is made . xdp encoding 114 is hashed to generate xdp hash 122 . pdf ′″ encoding 108 is hashed to generate pdf ′″ hash 116 . pdf ″ encoding 110 is hashed to generate pdf ″ hash 118 . pdf &# 39 ; encoding 112 is hashed to generate pdf &# 39 ; hash 120 . in some embodiments , one or more of xdp encoding variations , 102 , 104 , and 106 , are hashed in addition to the canonical xdp encoding . any hashing function can be used to generate the hashes , including the md5 hashing function . one or more hashes produced from various encodings are encrypted and combined to form multiple encoding signature 124 . the hashes can be combined before encryption or combined after individual encryption . any encryption method may be used , including any public key encryption methods . fig2 a illustrates an embodiment of a multiple encoding signature coupled to one or more electronic documents . multiple encoding signature 202 comprises two or more hashes corresponding to one or more encodings of electronic documents contained in 204 . in some embodiments , multiple encoding signature 202 is multiple encoding signature 124 of fig1 . in some embodiments , multiple encoding signature 202 comprises hashes for two or more unrelated documents contained in one or more documents of 204 . multiple encoding signature 202 and document 204 are coupled together in a single file . the multiple encoding signature can exists in any location of the file . in some embodiments , multiple encoding signature 204 and document 204 do not exist in the same file . for example , they may exist in different files and / or exist in a database . multiple encoding signature 202 may be a part of another document signature . fig2 b illustrates an embodiment of a single encrypted multiple encoding signature . in some embodiments fig2 b is the multiple encoding signature 202 of fig2 a . in the example shown , multiple hashes generated for different encodings have been combined before they are encrypted . the contents of the multiple encoding signature comprises hashes , 208 , 212 , and 216 , and labels , 206 , 210 , and 214 , corresponding to the hashes . there may any number of hashes and any number of labels . in some embodiments , a label corresponds to more than one hash . a label contains one or more data related to one or more hashes , including hash location , hash size , one or more encoding identifiers corresponding to one or more hashes , identifier identifying documents corresponding to one or more hashes , and any hash attributes . two or more hashes and one or more labels are encrypted together to form a multiple encoding signature . the hashes may be encrypted separately from the labels . the labels may be unencrypted . the labels may be included as metadata , i . e . header data , of a document . the order of the hashes and / or labels within the multiple encoding signature may be preconfigured or dynamically configured . if the location and attributes of the hashes are predetermined , labels do not have to be included . in some embodiments , labels are not included in the multiple encoding signature . fig2 c illustrates an embodiment of a multiple encoding signature with individually encrypted hashes . in some embodiments fig2 c is the multiple encoding signature 202 of fig2 a . in the example shown , multiple hashes generated for different encodings are encrypted individually before they are packaged together as a multiple encoding signature . the contents of the multiple encoding signature comprise single encoding signatures , 220 , 224 , and 228 , and labels , 218 , 222 , and 226 , corresponding to individually encrypted hashes . there may any number of individually encrypted hashes and any number of labels . in some embodiments , a label corresponds to more than one individually encrypted hash . a label contains one or more data related to one or more individually encrypted hashes , including individually encrypted hash location , individually encrypted hash size , one or more encoding identifiers corresponding to one or more individually encrypted hashes , identifier identifying documents corresponding to one or more individually encrypted hashes , and any individually encrypted hash attributes . two or more individually encrypted hashes and one or more labels are packaged together to form a multiple encoding signature . the labels may be left unencrypted or encrypted separately or together with a corresponding individually encrypted hash . the labels may be included as metadata , i . e . header data , of a document . the order of the individually encrypted hashes and / or labels within the multiple encoding signature may be preconfigured or dynamically configured . if the location and attributes of the individually encrypted hashes are predetermined , labels do not have to be included . in some embodiments , labels are not included in the multiple encoding signature . fig3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a multiple encoding signature system . in the example shown , author system 302 is connected to recipient system 306 by network 304 . author system 302 generates the multiple encoding signature and recipient system validates the multiple encoding signature . network 304 is any public or private network and / or combination thereof , including without limitation the internet , intranet , lan , wan , and other forms of connecting multiple systems and or groups of systems together . the network is used to send data between the author and the recipient . in some embodiments , the author and recipient system is physically located inside the same system . author system 302 comprises encoders , 308 , 310 , and 312 , hash generator 314 , and encrypter 316 . encoders 308 - 312 each corresponds to one or more encodings used to encode one or more documents . there can be any number of encoders . hash generator 314 generates hashes based at least in part on encodings of one or more documents . encrypter 316 encrypts one or more hashes individually or together in order to generate a multiple encoding signature . recipient system 306 comprises decoder 318 , decrypter 320 , hash generator 322 , and validator 324 . decoder 318 decodes the multiple encoding signature to determine and locate the hash needed to verify one or more documents . decrypter 320 decrypts the encoded signature . for example , if the signature was encoded using a public key cryptography , the public key is used to decrypt the signature . hash generator 322 generates the same hash used to generate the hash contained in the signature . validator 324 compares the generated hash and the hash of the signature in order to validate the signature . other components may exist in both the author and recipient system . this system diagram has been simplified to illustrate the embodiment clearly . fig4 illustrates an embodiment of a process for generating a multiple encoding signature . in the example shown , data to be encoded is received at 402 . at 404 the data is encoded to one or more encodings . encodings to be produced are preconfigured and / or dynamically configured . a canonical encoding may be used as one or more of the encodings . in some embodiments , already encoded documents are received and one or documents may be converted to a canonical encoding . at 406 , the encodings are hashed to produce hashes corresponding to each encoding . in some embodiments , only portions of the documents are hashed . the portions to be hashed can be preconfigured , dynamically configured , or specified by the author . at 408 the hashes are combined together . a label containing data corresponding to the hashes may be combined together with the hashes . at 410 , the combined hashes are encrypted to produce a multiple encoding signature . in some embodiments , the hashes are encrypted individually to produce individual signatures to be combined into a multiple encoding signature . the multiple encoding signature may be packaged into together with one or more corresponding documents or data . in some embodiments , the signatures are stored in an order , e . g ., a hierarchical order . in some embodiments , the signatures are stored in a separate module in an order , e . g ., a hierarchical order . the hierarchical order may be based on any signature or electronic document attribute or data . fig5 illustrates an embodiment of a process for validating a multiple encoding signature . the multiple encoding signature is received at 502 . at 504 , one or more efficient hashes that could be used to validate the document are determined . efficient hashes include hashes not requiring canonicalization of the document to be verified and hashes requiring less than the maximum amount of computation required to convert / canonicalize the document to be verified . in some embodiments , one or more efficient hashes are requested from a module containing multiple hashes . at 506 , the multiple encoding signature is decrypted and the most efficient hash contained in the multiple encoding signature is located . the most efficient hash may be a hash corresponding to the specific encoding of the document to be verified or a hash corresponding to an encoding that requires conversion of the document to be verified . if the document requires conversion , the document is converted / canonicalized to the required encoding . at 508 , all or a portion of the document encoding corresponding to the most efficient hash is hashed with the same hashing algorithm used to generate the most efficient hash . at 510 , the generated hash and the most efficient hash are compared to determine the validity of the signature . in some embodiments if the hashes match , the signature is verified . the processes shown in fig4 and 5 and described above may be implemented in any suitable way , such as one or more integrated circuits and / or other device , or as firmware , software , or otherwise . digital signatures for electronic documents have been described above as illustrative examples . digital signatures can be used to sign and validate data other than electronic documents . although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding , the invention is not limited to the details provided . there are many alternative ways of implementing the invention . the disclosed embodiments are illustrative and not restrictive .	7

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