It has been known that unnecessary electromagnetic field noises (hereinafter, simply referred to as noises) generated from electronic, information, communication, and industrial devices influence adversely, such as malfunction, on other electronic devices.
Further, it has been concerned that noises give some influences to a human body, and the influences given by noises have been studied.
In order to specify such invisible noise generation source, it is effective to visualize noises. Hitherto, devices to visualize noises have been proposed (refer to Patent Literatures 1 to 3).
For example, a device disclosed in Patent Literature 1 creates a diagram in which the respective electromagnetic field intensities (signal levels) of noises are displayed in a color on a two-dimensional surface. A device disclosed in Patent Literature 3 performs frequency analysis of noises on the surface of a measured object, and creates a contour map of noises of a specific frequency.
A device disclosed in Patent Literature 2 determines the position of a sensor in a three-dimensional space around a measured object by parallax, and displays the respective electromagnetic field intensities (signal levels) of noises at the position in a color. Accordingly, a measurer can acquire information on the noises at the position of the sensor.


The present invention relates to internal combustion engines of reciprocating piston type and is particularly, though not exclusively concerned with engines of the general type disclosed in EP-A-0591153.
This prior document discloses an engine in which the or each piston is caused to move over at least a portion of the cycle at a rate which is such that the graph of its displacement against time differs from the sinusoidal shape which is inherently produced in conventional engines in which each piston is connected to a respective crank on a crankshaft by a respective connecting rod. In such a conventional engine attempts are made to match the combustion of the fuel/air mixture to the motion of the piston but the philosophy underlying the construction of the prior document is that the combustion is permitted to proceed in the optimum manner and the piston is caused to move in a manner which "follows" the combustion and is related to the nature and progress of the combustion process.
More specifically, the prior document discloses an engine in which the piston is caused to decelerate and thus to move more slowly than in a conventional engine at or around the point in the cycle at which ignition of the fuel/air mixture occurs and then to speed up again prior to reaching the top dead centre position (TDC). This is based on the recognition that in a conventional engine the piston is moving at substantially its maximum speed at the point at which ignition occurs and the compression ratio is altering at substantially its maximum rate and thus impedes the rate of propagation of the flame front through the fuel/air mixture and thus impairs the nature and completeness of the combustion process. However, slowing the piston down at around the ignition point means that the rate of increase in the pressure of the fuel/air mixture at the time propagation of the flame front commences is substantially less than is usual which results in the flame front propagating through the fuel/air mixture very much more rapidly than as usual.
The prior document also discloses that the piston is caused to reach its maximum acceleration and maximum speed at something between 0 and 40.degree. after TDC, instead of 90.degree. after TDC as in a conventional engine and thereafter to move more slowly than in a conventional engine in the latter portion of its working stroke prior to reaching the bottom dead centre position (BDC). This results in a decreased temperature of the exhaust gases and thus in reduced emissions of NOx and reduced erosion of the exhaust ports and valves.
Extensive tests have been conducted on engines constructed in accordance with EP-A-0591153and these have shown that the engine does indeed have a substantially increased efficiency by comparison with conventional engines and also dramatically reduced emissions of unburnt hydrocarbons CO and NOx. Indeed, these tests have shown that the combustion process in the engines in accordance with the prior document proceeds in a manner which is fundamentally different to that in conventional engines, as evidenced by the fact that, for instance, the rate of pressure rise in the cylinder during combustion is about 6.5 bar per degree of rotation of the output shaft, as compared with about 2.5 bar in a conventional engine and that the combustion is complete within about 22.degree. rotation of the output shaft after TDC, as compared to about 60.degree. in a conventional engine.
However, the engine disclosed in the prior document incorporates profiled cams cooperating with the pistons and not a conventional crankshaft and whilst such cams are wholly functional and technically satisfactory it would be preferable for the engine to incorporate a crankshaft of generally conventional type because mass manufacturing facilities for crankshafts are already available and the technology for manufacturing crankshaft type engines is more familiar and tried and tested than that for cam type engines.


Pain is the fifth vital signs besides body temperature, respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, which can serve as a warning when the body is hurt and cause a series of defensive responses of the body. However, excessive pain will cause damage to the body, and become one kind of unbearable torture to the body. Therefore, analgesia is an important task for healthcare practitioners. Chronic pain threatens the survival and quality of human life, and also causes a great burden on families and society. According to American Pain Society, it was reported that the prevalence of chronic pain in United States was estimated as 35.5%, including 105 million people. It costs over $ 100 billion, directly resulting in the consumption of healthcare spending and the loss of working hours.
The most commonly used analgesics include acetaminophen, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioid receptor agonists, such as tramadol and morphine. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have weak analgesic efficacy, and may lead to gastrointestinal bleeding, renal failure and liver dysfunction as well as other side effects; and overdose of opioids will cause respiratory depression, and long-term use thereof will lead to side effects, such as constipation, abuse, dependence and addiction. In recent years, there are some other analgesics which are also marketed, for example antidepressants (such as Duloxetine, Lilly), anticonvulsants (such as Puri Galindo, Lyrica™, Pfizer) and selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors (such as Parecoxib, Pfizer).
A new mode for developing analgesic drugs is the mechanism-mediated development of new drug targets. For such mode, the mechanism of pain is mainly studied to find an important factor or target for regulating occurrence and development of pain, thereby developing a new medicament to intervene with the factor or target and achieve analgesia. Many clinical applications based on the results of such basic research are currently tested, however, few of them are successful.
One typical example is the development of anti-nerve growth factor (Nerve Growth Factor, NGF) antibodies. NGF is a member from neurotrophic factor family, and plays an important role in the survival and apoptosis of neuron during development. Basic research shows that NGF may promote pain, therefore blocking NGF may be an important method for treating pain. Therefore many anti-NGF antibodies were developed, including Tanezumab (Pfizer), SAR164877/REGN475 (Sanofi/Regeneron) and NJ-42160443/AMG403 (Johnson & Johnson/Amgen). These drugs show analgesic effects in animal models and clinical trials of phase I/II also show safety and analgesic effects, however, in the clinical trial of phase III in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis patients for evaluating clinical efficacy and safety of analgesia of anti-NGF antibodies in combination with NSAID drugs, painless ischemic necrosis of caput femoris can be found in a small number of patients (Garber K Painkiller Novel Fate of the mAbs Hangs in Balance. Nat Biotechnol 2011, 173-174; Seidel M, Lane N, Control of Arthritis Pain with Anti-Nerve-Growth Factor, Risk and Benefit, Curr Rheumatol Rep, 2012, 583-585).
Therefore, there is a huge market demand in the development of analgesics with new mechanism. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF is a neurotrophic factor discovered after nerve growth factor was discovered, molecular weight of which is 12.4 kDa. BNDF mainly distributes in central nervous system, and is also synthesized in peripheral nervous system and plays an important role in the regulation of survival, differentiation of neuron and synaptic plasticity and damage repair. Currently, there is an evidence to show that BDNF is not only an important factor in regulating development of nervous system and emotional disorders, but also an important mediator of pain.
Precursor for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (proBDNF) is synthesized in endoplasmic reticulum from BDNF gene through transcription and translation. The peptide chain is of 247 amino acids in length, and the theoretical molecular weight of the amino acid sequence is 27.8 KD. However, the molecular weight may be varied in a range of 32-36 kD due to different degree of glycosylation for the protein. In ProBDNF, the amino acid sequence at 1-18 positions is signal peptide sequence, and two fragments are produced during secretion process, wherein one fragment is a polypeptide fragment containing amino acids at 19-129 positions (that is, precursor domain), which is called precursor domain (proBDNF pro-domain), and another fragment is a fragment of amino acids at 130-247 positions (that is, mature domain), which will form BDNF with bioactivities upon processing.
At present, a lot of evidence shows that proBDNF is not only an intermediate of mature BDNF, but also can be used as a ligand to bind high-affinity receptor, p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) for exerting biological effects. Currently, the function of proB DNF-p75NTR signaling pathway in pain is unclear, however, there is a point-of-view that spinal sensitization mechanism of pain is similar to forming mechanism of Long-term potentiation (LTP)/long term depression (LTD) of hippocampus, while BDNF-TrkB and proBDNF-p75NTR signaling pathway are important signaling molecules for regulating LTP/LTD.
In 2012, experiments from Zhang, Yanling (Central South University) demonstrated that the expression of proBDNF in dorsal root ganglion was up-regulated after hind legs of a rat were cut; after an adenoviral vector of proBDNF was injected into hind legs of a rat, a great deal of proBDNF was expressed on nerve fibers by the adenovirus vector, and over-expression of proBDNF caused a significant decrease in withdrawal threshold of hind legs to mechanical stimulation and inflammation in plantar tissue; and withdrawal threshold of hind legs after the hind legs of a rat were cut can be increased by intraperitoneal administration of anti-proBDNF polyclonal antibody.
Cutting pain belongs to acute pain. For acute and chronic pain, both of outer peripheral sensitization and central sensitization can occur, and the difference between which is that: for outer peripheral sensitization, transmitters released by nerve fibers or axons in local tissue and intracellular signaling pathways are different, and pain transmitter and signaling pathways associated with dorsal root ganglion are also different, the latter of which lasts longer; in addition, for central sensitization, sustained activation of glial cells in spinal cord may also be the most important difference between the mechanisms of acute and chronic pain.


Use of imaging sensors in vehicle imaging systems is common and known. Examples of such known systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,949,331; 5,670,935 and/or 5,550,677, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.


The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to persistent paging collision enhancement using dynamically switched higher order antennas in idle mode.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a New Radio (NR) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access network nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
When a base station has information to transmit to a UE, the base station may transmit a paging message to prompt the UE to enter a connected state to receive the information. In some cases, a UE may have the capability of supporting multiple wireless services or subscriptions (e.g., radio access technologies (RATs), or subscriber identification modules (SIMs), etc.). Each of the multiple subscriptions supported by the UE may be associated with a different paging occasion or wakeup time during a reception time interval. In some instances, the UE may wake up for a paging occasion for each of the multiple subscriptions. In some such instances, conventional solutions for processing pages may be deficient.


In high speed magnetic tape handlers, magnetic tape is reeled back and forth between a supply reel and a take-up reel passing over a record/play-back head. The tape is drawn across the head by a capstan usually driven by a fast response low inertia DC motor. In such machines the tape is accelerated and decelerated at extremely high rates posing a very severe problem on means for maintaining uniform tension on the tape in the vicinity of the record/play-back head at all times. The inertia of the supply and take-up reels is such that, although they may be driven by powerful servo motors, they cannot provide the required uniform tension. Accordingly, it is usual to provide a substantial vacuum buffer on each side of the capstan and between it and the servo controlled reels. These vacuum buffers are typically provided by means of rectangular straight channels generally about 2 to 3 inches wide and as long as dictated by the response time of the reel servos. Vacuum ports at appropriate points, particularly at the bottom of the tank, couple a vacuum system to the buffer channels. Additional small buffers may be provided usually one on each side of the record/play-back head, to accommodate rapid acceleration of the tape.
A typical high speed magnetic tape handler is constructed with the two reels (supply and take-up) mounted in the upper part of a cabinet enclosure with the capstan and head mounted below and the two vacuum tanks extending downward, centrally located and side-by-side. Illustrating the system with 101/2 inch diameter reels, a typical cabinet is of the order of 27 inches wide and 63 inches high. The result is a substantial area of unused space on each side of the vacuum tanks and below the reels. It is the object of the present invention to more efficiently use the cabinet area.


The instant invention relates to embryo transfer procedures. More particularly, the instant invention relates to a calculator for displaying synchronization of the ovulation cycles of a donor of at least one egg and a recipient of that egg during an egg transfer procedure.
Recent advances in reproductive medicine and reproductive technology have provided novel avenues for the treatment of infertility and have made it possible to achieve pregnancy in women previously thought to be irreversibly sterile.
The development of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) has successfully overcome female sterility due to absent, obstructed or irreparable fallopian tubes and has resulted in the extension of this technique to any etiologic infertility factor which cannot be satisfactorily treated with conventional methods, provided the partners involved have normal gametes and the female partner has a normal uterus. Recently, successful transfer of donor embryos and donor oocytes fertilized in vitro to recipient endometria has extended the use of in vitro fertilization technology to conditions where female gametes are either absent or are not readily accessible to oocyte harvest or where there is gametic abnormality resulting in in vitro fertilization failure. Moreover, the availability of donor oocytes has allowed the use of such gametes for testing fertilization potential in couples where repetitive IVF trials have resulted in lack of fertilization of apparently normal oocytes by seemingly normal spermatozoa. Accordingly, oocyte donation programs can be utilized in the treatment of human infertility as well as diagnostically to assess spermoocyte interactions. Although, medically, oocyte donation is analogous to sperm donation, technically the relative inaccessibility of female gametes and the relative difficulty of synchronizing the ovulatory process in the donor with endometrial maturation in the recipient make the procedures quite different.
While in vivo procedures have been successfully employed on a number of occasions, the transfer of in vitro fertilized donated oocytes to appropriately synchronized recipients appears to have wider clinical applications. In vitro procedures provide the added advantage of multiple oocyte collection in donors who are being stimulated with gonadotropines. Moreover, in vitro procedures do not require in vivo insemination of a donor with the inherent risks of undesired retained tubal or intrauterine pregnancy, and the possibility of transmitting semen born infectious diseases.
Success of all donor oocyte procedures depends on appropriate embryo-endometrial synchronization. Critical to the achievement of pregnancy is the procurement of a viable embryo which can be transferred into a receptive endometrial milieu.
In order to maximize the possibility of a successful transfer, it is necessary to synchronize the development of the fertilized donor egg with the menstrual cycle of the recipient. While the subtleties of such synchronization may be readily understandable to physicians engaged in transplant research, the subtleties are rarely understood by recipients and donors and can be confusing to medical support personnel as well as physicians in the field. Since it is necessary to develop and communicate information regarding synchronization to recipients and their spouses as well as donors, there is a need for a procedure or device for conveying such information in a simple, readily understandable format which can eventually become uniform throughout the practice.


Although the epidemiology of headache disorders is only partly documented, taken together, headache disorders are extraordinarily common. It has been estimated that worldwide approximately 240 million people have migraine attacks each year. The National Headache Foundation states that more than 29.5 million Americans suffer from migraine headaches, with women being affected three times more often than men. In addition, in developed countries, tension type or “stress” headaches are estimated to affect two-thirds of all adult males and over 80% of adult females. Less well known is the prevalence of chronic daily headaches although the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one adult in 20 has a headache every or nearly every day. Trigeminal neuralgia is not a common disorder but the pain associated with trigeminal neuralgia attacks has been described as among the most severe known to mankind.
Not only are headaches painful, but headache disorders can be disabling to afflicted individuals. Worldwide, according to the WHO, when analyzing all causes for “years lived with disability” migraine headaches were rated 19th on the list. Headache disorders may impose substantial hardships and burdens on the afflicted individuals including personal suffering, impaired quality of life and high financial cost. Repeated headache attacks, and often the constant fear of the next one, can damage an individual's family life, social life and their productivity at their place of employment. For example, it is estimated that social activity and work capacity are reduced in almost all migraine sufferers and in 60% of tension headache sufferers. Finally, the long-term effort of coping with a chronic headache disorder may also predispose an individual to other illnesses. For example, depression is three times more common in people with migraine or severe headaches than in healthy individuals.
A wide range of headache types have been classified by the International Headache Society and among them are primary types including vascular, trigemino-autonomic and tension headaches and secondary types including headaches resulting from infection, trauma and non-vascular, intracranial disorders.
Vascular headaches refer to a group of headache conditions in which events at the interface between meningeal blood vessels and afferent nerve fibers are critical major components in the production of pain. Afferent nociceptive nerve fibers innervating meningeal blood vessels become activated in response to inflammatory and related events at the peri-vascular sheet causing a throbbing or pulsating type of pain. The most common type of vascular headache is migraine. Current pathophysiological evidence suggests that the trigemino-vascular system plays a pivotal role in the genesis of migraine headache. Migraine headache characteristics include unilateral (60%) or bilateral head pain, pain with a pulsating or throbbing quality, moderate to severe pain, pain associated with nausea or vomiting, sensitivity to light and sound, attacks that last four to 72 hours (sometimes longer) and visual disturbances or aura. Physical exertion often makes a migraine headache worse and women are more likely than men to have migraine headaches. Approximately one to two-fifths of migraine sufferers experience an aura, a sensory phenomena including visual disturbances that precede the onset of migraine headache. It is now believed that the aura is due to transient changes in the activity of specific nerve cells.
Another type of primary vascular headache is “cluster” headache, which is diagnosed by a well characterized clinical presentation. Although the syndrome is well defined from a clinical point of view, the causes are not well understood. The pathophysiology is believed to be associated with the trigemino-autonomic system. The periods during which cluster headache is experienced can last several weeks or months and then disappear completely for months or years leaving pain-free intervals between headache series. Cluster headache is characterized by frequent attacks of short lasting (15-180 minutes), severe, uniform, unilateral head pain associated with autonomic symptoms (e.g. lacrimation and nasal congestion). Pain can occur on the opposite side when a new series starts, pain may be localized behind the eye or in the eye region and may radiate to the forehead, temple, nose, cheek or upper gum on the affected side. Pain is generally extremely intense and severe and often described as a burning, boring, stabbing or piercing sensation. The headaches occur regularly, generally at the same time each day. Many individuals get one to four headaches per a day during a cluster period. Cluster headache is less common than migraine or tension headache and its cause is unknown. In contrast to migraine headaches, cluster headaches occur more in men than women and individuals suffering from these attacks may be very restless.
Tension headache, often referred to as “stress” headache, is a non-specific type of primary headache, which is of non-vascular origin and rarely is related to an organic disease. The pathophysiology of tension headaches is thought to involve the myo-facial system. For example, tension headache may be caused by the tightening of facial and neck muscles, clenching or grinding of teeth and/or poor posture. Tension headaches can be episodic and chronic in course, and typically are of mild to moderate intensity. Verbal descriptor used to characterize tension headache include pressing, dull aching and/or non-pulsating. Tension head pain is typically bilateral, and is not aggravated by physical activity.
Trigeminal neuralgia, also called “tic duloreaux” is a condition that affects the trigeminal nerves and results in severe facial and head pain. Trigeminal neuralgia most commonly is diagnosed in patients over age 50, is slightly more common in women and has an incidence of approximately 4-5 per 100,000 persons. Trigeminal neuralgia is characterized by sudden severe, sharp facial pain, which usually starts without warning. The quick bursts of pain are described as “lightening bolt-like”, “machine gun-like” or “electric shock-like”. The pain is generally on one side of the face and is spasmodic, coming in short bursts lasting a few seconds which may repeat many times over the course of a day. Trigeminal neuralgia can involve one or more branches of the trigeminal nerve and the causes are not well characterized.
Current Treatments
There are numerous treatment strategies for migraine and associated symptoms (e.g. nausea). However, to date, there is no single treatment strategy (including prevention or prophylaxis) that successfully alleviates migraine in a majority of patients. Additionally, treatment that has proven effective in one particular migraine sufferer may only be partially or intermittently effective. The current standard of care for migraine focuses on three major areas: 1) acute or abortive treatment; 2) treatment to relieve specific symptoms; and 3) preventive treatment.
Abortive treatment is always indicated because of the disabling nature of migraine attacks. Sumitriptan and related 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT-1, serotonin) receptor agonists (triptans) are often considered the therapy of choice for migraine headache. To show optimal effectiveness, these agents generally have to be given early in the onset of pain. Serotonin receptor agonists are effective in up to 70% of patients and generally have few side effects when used sporadically. The number of patients benefiting from treatment with triptans may decrease to less than 50% during long-term therapy. Despite being effective, serotonin receptor agonists often only partially attenuate migraine headache. Rebound pain frequently occurs during the time period during which the drug levels are falling. Furthermore, side effects may arise including dizziness, heaviness or pressure on the chest and arms, shortness of breath, and sometimes chest pain which limit their clinical utility. Triptans are contra-indicated for patients with coronary artery disease. Other members of this class of drugs include, but are not limited to, sumatriptan, zolmitriptan, naratriptan, rizatriptan and elitriptan. Other classes of drugs that are used to treat migraine include the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), ergotamines and on occasion, neuroleptic drugs such as compazine. NSAIDS are as effective as triptans in alleviating migraine headache when given at the onset of mild migraine headache. Ergotamines, although commonly prescribed, are less effective than triptans and NSAIDS. Opioids such as codeine and butorphanol are not a first choice for the treatment of migraine because of their limited effectiveness, associated side effects including sedation and respiratory depression and the potential for dependence and abuse.
Preventive treatment strategies are considered whenever migraine attacks have occurred several times in a month or are very severe and do not respond well to abortive medication. The following classes of drugs are used for preventing migraine: beta-blockers (e.g. propranolol, metoprolol, atenolol), calcium channel blockers, NSAIDs, antidepressants, anti-convulsant drugs (e.g. divalproex sodium, topiramate) and methysergide (no longer available in the United States). Another avenue for preventive treatment is educating the migraine patient to recognize and avoid migraine triggers which may help to reduce the frequency of attacks. Common migraine triggers include, but are not limited to, weather changes, bright lights, strong odors, stress and foods.
In a significant number of patients abortive and preventive treatments for migraine headache are often either ineffective, only partially effective or associated with significant side effects including hypotension, tiredness, increased weight, breathlessness, dizziness, heaviness or pressure on the chest and arms, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, muscle cramps, or peripheral vasoconstriction.
Treatment strategies for cluster headache are classified as abortive or preventive. Abortive treatments are directed at stopping or reducing the severity of an attack, while preventive treatments are used to reduce the frequency and intensity of individual headache bouts. Abortive treatment strategies of cluster headache are quite successful when drugs can be injected. Drug classes used for injection include the 5HT1-agonists (e.g. sumatriptan) and the ergotamines. Alternatively, inhalation of 100% oxygen or an occipital nerve block have proven effective. However, all these treatment strategies require a visit to a doctor's office or to an emergency room.
Because of the short-lived nature of cluster headaches, preventive therapy is the cornerstone for individuals who have frequent attacks which severely affect their quality of life. Preventive therapy is initiated at the start of a cluster headache cycle and continues until the person is free of headaches for at least 2 weeks. The dosage of the preventive drug is then slowly tapered off which helps prevent relapsing headaches. Drug classes used preventively include beta-blockers, tricyclic antidepressants, anti-convulsants (e.g., divalproex sodium, topiramate), calcium channel blockers (e.g., verapamil), cyproheptadine, and NSAIDs (e.g. naproxen). Unlike drugs that ablate cluster headache (abortive drugs), most of the drugs used to prevent cluster headache have been developed for other clinical conditions and unfortunately, their effectiveness in prevention is limited.
Treatment for tension headache usually consists of nonprescription painkillers such as aspirin, acetaminophen, NSAIDs or combinations of these agents with caffeine or sedating medications. When severe muscle contraction is present and/or the tension headache becomes chronic, more powerful prescription drugs may be needed to achieve relief. Tricyclic anti-depressants including amitriptyline HCl, doxepin HCl and nortriptyline HCl are commonly used. However these drugs have significant side effects including sedation, weight gain, dry mouth and constipation.
The first line treatment of trigeminal neuralgia is pharmacological in nature and is based on the use of antiepileptic agents including gabapentin, baclofen, clonazepam, lamotrigine, oxcarbazepine, toprimate and carbamazepine. About 50% of patients initially respond to treatment with a single agent and about 70% respond to treatment with two agents. However, a significant portion of patients (>50%) eventually becomes refractory to drug treatment and adding of a third agent or an analgesic drug (opioid or a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent) does not improve therapeutic success. Therapy with antiepileptic agents is also associated with side effects, most prominently dizziness, drowsiness, and ataxia. Many antiepileptic agents have the potential to cause rare but serious reactions.
Considering surgical interventions is the next appropriate step in patients who are refractory to pharmacological interventions. Surgical techniques include radio-frequency ablation of the trigeminal ganglion, micro-vascular decompression of the trigeminal root and gamma-knife radiation to the trigeminal root. The success rate of surgical techniques is initially quite high (80-90%) while the longer term success is closer to 50%. Specific side effects of these surgical interventions are sensory loss (numbness) and/or dysesthesia (e.g. analgesia dolorosa) in the distribution of the trigeminal nerve. Micro-vascular decompression in particular can be complicated by the occurrence of meningitis, cerebrospinal fluid leaks, or cranial nerve deficits. This procedure requires a craniotomy and the published mortality rate for this procedure is significant at 0.2-1.2%.
It is clear that migraine, cluster and tension headaches as well as trigeminal neuralgia can be debilitating to individuals and significantly impair their quality of life. To date, there does not appear to be a class of drugs or a treatment regimen that is effective for a majority of patients suffering from primary or secondary headaches or suffering from trigeminal neuralgia. Therefore, there is still a great need for novel and more effective therapies preventing or alleviating head pain of any origin.


This invention relates to packed bed assemblies of random-dumped packings used for mass and heat transfer operations between two fluids, typically operations such as gas absorption and desorption, distillation, liquid extraction, and the like.
Extended-surface, random-oriented, packed beds for mass and heat transfer applications are widely used in industry, typically for gas-liquid and liquid-liquid contact. While most packed bed assemblies comprise vertical cylindrical columns employing countercurrent gas-liquid flow, referred to as packed towers, horizontal gas flow units are also known to the art, and are referred to as cross-flow contactors. To save energy and capital costs in either vertical or horizontal flow configurations, industry requires the highest flow capacities and lowest pressure drops for the packed bed contacting media. These objectives have been partially met in recent years primarily through the use of larger packing sizes.
At equal gas and liquid flows or loading rates in random-dumped beds, larger packing sizes of a given shape and design have relatively lower pressure drop and mass transfer performance than the smaller packing sizes. Because of their higher void space, both as individual packing elements, i.e, packing pieces, and as a packed bed, assemblies of the larger packing sizes also have higher limiting liquid and gas flow capacities (loading and flooding) than the smaller sizes of the same design. However, the gain in gas and liquid flow capacity for the larger packing sizes comes at the expense of lower mass transfer performance. The larger packing sizes have lower packing densities, i.e., lower number of packing elements per cubic foot and higher fractional void volumes, than do the smaller size packing elements of the same design. At the higher liquid loadings allowed by the lower packing density, the higher voidage of packed beds of the larger size packings results in increased gas axial back-mixing and loss of the desired countercurrent gas-liquid flow.
Various geometric packing shapes and configurations have been used in attempts to minimize the loss in transfer performance with increasing tower packing size. Nevertheless, for any given packing design, a significant portion of the gain in reducing tower diameter through the use of larger, higher flow capacity, packing sizes is offset by the deeper bed depth required to achieve the desired degree of mass transfer efficiency.
Most random tower packings have shapes that provide anisotropic gas flow resistancexe2x80x94that is, they are relatively xe2x80x9copenxe2x80x9d for gas and liquid flow along one axis, and have a higher amount of planar or filamentary deflection surfaces along the transverse axis. Examples of packings with this property include cylindrical packings such as Raschig and Pall rings, spherical packings such as Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright), as well as most plastic packings made by injection molding. To facilitate release from the mold, injection-molded packings necessarily have relatively high projected open area in the release direction, and typically, not in the transverse direction. Thus, these packings are highly anisotropic with respect to fluid flow resistance.
Within a packing element, gas and liquid flow will tend to take the path of least resistance, or through the xe2x80x9copenxe2x80x9d or mold release direction. While the random orientation of the elements in the bed is depended on to overcome this adverse property, gas flow macro-direction changes in the bed will be of the order of the packing size. In the smaller packing sizes, gas flow direction changes occur frequently with respect to the bed depth, and gas mixing is adequate. However, for the larger packing sizes the number of flow direction changes per foot of packing depth may be low enough to result in poor gas mixing. For example, a packed bed of 1-inch anisotropic packing elements would theoretically tend to have approximately 10-12 gas flow macro-direction changes per foot of packed depth. On the other hand, a 3xc2xd inch size packing would tend to have only 3 to 4 gas flow direction changes per foot of depth. This contributes to the loss in mass transfer performance with an increase in packing size in anisotropic packing elements. This characteristic has been tacitly acknowledged by the development of xe2x80x9cshallowxe2x80x9d packing shapes that have a relatively short axial depth, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,957,931 and 6,007,915. There are additional parameters, such as the degree of liquid mixing and surface renewal frequency, whose contribution to transfer efficiency decreases with an increase in packing size for a given packing shape and style.
The use of sections or zones of different packing sizes has been taught in the prior art to resolve some specific packed bed problems. For example, because of the typically lower volumetric density of tower packing adjacent to the containing wall, the flow resistance in this area is less than in the center of the packing. Gas and liquid tend to channel along the wall, a phenomenon known as xe2x80x9cwall effectxe2x80x9d. Cameron and Bharga, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,679,290, teach the use of two different sizes of packing in order to overcome wall effect and to obtain uniform gas flow across the column diameter. In ""290, Cameron and Bharga use a plurality of a first packing size in an annulus adjacent to an upper part of the tower wall and a second plurality of a larger packing size in the core of the column in order to obtain uniform gas flow through the tower cross-sectional area.
Because flooding often occurs as a result of the restricted flow area adjacent to the packing support tray in countercurrent flow columns, it is known in the art to provide for higher flooding capacities by using a zone of a larger packing size on the support tray, and then a smaller packing size in the remainder of the column. It is also known in the art to use a zone or layer of smaller packing size on top of a larger column packing size in order to enhance initial liquid distribution. Various assemblies of zones and layers of packing elements are illustrated in the following Weber U.S. Pat. No. 2,055,162, Wible U.S. Pat. No. 2,271,671, Huber U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,285,587, 3,957,931, McKeown U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,705, Hoppe U.S. Pat. No. 4,333,894, Oshima U.S. Pat. No.5,242,626, Nagl U.S. Pat. No. 5,302,361, and Sunder U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,574. The zones of packing elements proposed in these and other prior art disclosures may be random or ordered, or combinations of one or more random or ordered zones or layers or packing elements. In none of the prior art of which I am aware, however, are two different packing sizes mixed with each other or completely co-mingled for use either as the sole packed bed contacting means or as the makeup of a bed, layer, or zone in a combination of beds, layers or zones.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for mass or heat transfer between two fluids in the form of a random-dumped packed bed having improved mass transfer performance combined with high limiting flow capacities.
This invention combines the supplemental surface area and mass and heat transfer capacity of a plurality of a first packing size with the lower pressure drop and increased gas and liquid flow capacity of a plurality of a suitable second larger packing size, by mixing the two sizes to obtain a substantially uniform mixture of the two disparate packing sizes. Mixing of the two packing sizes to a substantially uniformly dispersed mix may be done by any conventional means such as a tumbling drum, or controlled volumetric metering or a combination thereof. The mixed bed of this invention provides for the contribution of the supplemental mass and transfer area of the small packing size fraction while substantially retaining the higher limiting flow capacities of a bed of the larger packing size in which the smaller size packing elements are embedded.
Additional advantages accruing to the mixed-size packed bed of this invention include more uniform fluid flow, including possible alleviations of wall effect, and reduced axial back-mixing. A characteristic of a random-packed bed is that the size of the interstitial void spaces increases as the packing size increases. The interstitial voids are areas of zero flow resistance and zero active mass and heat transfer surface, except for liquid drop free fall therethrough. The interstitial voids between packing elements can also create low-resistance by-pass routes for gas and liquid, causing liquid channeling as well as gas axial back-mixing. These latter effects impair the desired countercurrent gas-liquid contact in a vertical packed column and result in lower contact efficiencies in a cross-flow contactor. Partially filling the interstitial inter-element voids of a packed bed of a larger size packing with smaller packing pieces replaces the empty void spaces with supplemental mass and heat transfer area, and provides for more uniform gas flow resistance and augmented liquid collection and re-distribution.
By studying shapes such as rings and spheres, it is possible to establish the general factors governing selection of the size mixture that will provide a uniformly dispersed and stable mixed bed in the method and apparatus of this invention. A mixture of packing sizes in which the volume of a smaller packing piece is approximately equal to, or greater than, the interstitial inter-element void space between the larger size packing elements provides mixed bed stability and is the preferred mixture. When the smaller packing element volume is larger than the average interstitial inter-element void space of the larger packing size bed, the final mixed bed volume is greater than the sum of the individual bed volumes of the two packing sizes prior to mixing. Because packings are sold on the basis of volume, this property is economically advantageous.
Certain packing shapes or designs, particularly packing elements with external projections or ridges, tend to resist settling and may have unusually high interstitial or non-uniform inter-element void space. In such cases, attempts to mix in a packing size that is substantially smaller than the interstitial void space between packing elements may lead to separation, non-uniform distribution or difficulty in mixing. For example, attempts at mixing 1xc2xc-inch Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) with 3xc2xd-inch Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) gave beds where the smaller packing pieces fell through the interstitial voids of the larger packing and did not remain dispersed.
While the size and shape of inter-element void spaces will vary with the design and size of the packing elements, void spaces are typically formed between more than two elements; that is, a grouping of elements. The number of the void spaces in a packed bed is therefore significantly less than the number of packing elements comprising the bed. Because the number of packing elements per unit volume increases rapidly with a decrease in nominal size, as is illustrated by the data of Table 1 for spherical and ring packings, relatively small volume percentages of a smaller packing size are required to substantially fill the void spaces of a random bed of a second larger size packing element.
In working with various combinations of packing elements to be used in my invention, the percent by volume in a bed and the percent by number of a given packing element in the bed can be calculated from a table such as Table 1, which can readily be made up for design configurations of packing elements other than those in Table 1. As an example, a 10% by volume mix of a nominal 1xc2xc-inch size Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) (1637 pieces per cubic foot) with a nominal 2-inch size Tri-Packs(copyright) (350 pieces per cubic foot) contains 162 1xc2xc-inch size packing elements and 315 2-inch packing elements, or a mix containing 34% by number of the smaller packing size. A 20% volumetric mix of the smaller 1xc2xc-inch size will contain 325 1xc2xc-inch pieces and 280 2-inch pieces, yielding a mix that contains 53.7% by number of the smaller packing size. Similarly, a mixture of only 10% by volume 1-inch Koch Flexirings(copyright) (1464 pieces/cubic foot) and 90% 1xc2xd-inch Koch Flexirings(copyright) (438 pieces/cubic foot) produces a packed bed containing 27% of the 1-inch rings by number.
There are a variety of packing shapes and geometries, including cylinders, spheres, saddles, etc., and the configuration and size of the interstitial inter-element voidage varies with the packing geometry and packing size. In addition to the well-known Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) and Koch Flexirings(copyright) mentioned above, see the variously configured packing elements disclosed in the following Ellis U.S. Pat. No. Ellis 3,957,931, Leva U.S. Pat. No.4,203,934, Hackenjos U.S. Pat. No. 4,203,935, Leva U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,863, Glen et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,554,114, Lang U.S. Pat. No. 4,724,593, Halbirt U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,088, Southam U.S. Pat. No. 5,670,095, Rukovena U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,915, Fan U.S. Pat. No. 6,182,950, Shojaie U.S. Pat. No. 6,371,452, and Sunder U.S. Pat. No. 6,425,574. My invention may be used with any of these or any other commercially available packing elements. This diversity of packing elements, however, suggests that preliminary testing of mixtures of a given packing design may be useful in order to suitable or optimum size mixtures for the application of this invention.
In the method and apparatus of this invention, the volume percent of the smaller packing size of the total packing volume is from 5 to 50%, and preferably from 5 to 30%. The appropriate volume and number mixture of sizes may be estimated from the piece count per unit volume data for each selected packing type and size combination by anyone skilled in the art of packed bed design. Alternatively, interstitial void volumes may be visually measured or estimated by mixing test quantities of the different packing sizes in a suitable container.
Precise calculations of the volumes of either the packing elements or the void spaces are difficult to make, particularly in view of the many different designs. Accordingly, as used herein, the term xe2x80x9csizexe2x80x9d is not an absolute, but a relative, term. The relative size of a packing element may be arbitrarily taken as equal to the volume occupied by a given number of randomly dumped packing elements divided by that number. For example, if 1000 packing elements A fill a cubic foot when randomly dumped, then the relative size of packing element A may be taken as equal to 0.001 cubic feet, or 1.73 cubic inches. Referring to Table 1, although they are both nominally designated as xe2x80x9c1-inchxe2x80x9d sizes, using the foregoing definition, the 1-inch Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) have a relative sized of 0.75 cubic inches as against 1.18 cubic inches for the Koch Flexrings(copyright).
As used herein, the term xe2x80x9cinterstitial inter-element void spacexe2x80x9d is also a relative termxe2x80x94that is, it represents an average of the volumes of the voids between contacting or nearly contacting packing elements. The average void volume between groups or assemblies of the packing elements is related to the relative size of the packing elements for a given configurationxe2x80x94that is, the larger the packing element size, the larger the void space between assemblies of the packing. Therefore, the relative interstitial inter-element voids may be taken as directly proportional to the relative size of the packing element as determined above. As used herein, when I refer to a packing element B which is of a size substantially equal to the average size of the interstitial void spaces of a random packed bed of a given type and size of packing element, I mean it has a size which, when distributed substantially evenly throughout a bed of the elements A, will occupy the void spaces in the bed of larger elements A while neither increasing the total volume of the bed nor falling through the void spaces.
Preferred mixture percentages may also be based on the relative cost increase of the mixture compared to the base price of the larger packing size. For example, the prices of polypropylene Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright), in the nominal 2-inch and 3xc2xd-inch sizes, are currently $14.24 and $9.36/cubic foot, respectively. From Table I, 5% by volume of the 2-inch size would have 18 elements, representing a cost of $0.72. The 95% of the 3xc2xd inch packing, or 46 pieces, would cost $8.97, giving a total cost for the mixture of $9.69. This is only $0.33 more per cubic foot than the $9.36/CF of the larger packing size, or a 3.1% increase, assuming volume additivity. However, tests show that, for this combination of packing sizes, the volumes are more than additive (the 2-inch polypropylene Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright) packing is larger than the average interstitial voids of the bed of the 3xc2xd inch packing size) so that the percent cost increase would be even less than 3%. For this size mixture of polypropylene Jaeger Tri-Packs(copyright), there would be 18 of the 2-inch elements mixed with 46 of the 3xc2xd inch elements, giving a number percentage of 28% of the smaller packing size for a nominal 5% volumetric mix.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display apparatus having high resolution.
2. Discussion of the Background
With the development of technology, the resolution of a liquid crystal display (LCD) has been gradually improved. Recently, a full high definition (FHD) LCD having a high resolution of 1920×1080 has been developed. However, since the LCD may have a hold type structure, motion blurring, in which an object is blurred when a dynamic image is displayed, may occur.
In order to prevent motion blurring, motion interpolation technology, which generates a new image frame having interpolated motion, and frame rate control technology, which adjusts the number of frames per second by inserting a new image frame between two sequentially input image frames, have been developed.
However, a high resolution LCD employing motion interpolation technology has not yet been developed. Therefore, the display quality of a high resolution LCD may be degraded due to motion blurring.


1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system and technique for permitting a procedural or linear program to be accessed on an event-driven basis. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and technique which permit programs written in procedural fourth-generation interpretive languages to be responsive to and be accessible by reactive or event-driven programs or input, such as a graphical user interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
A number of different varieties of programming languages exist today, each having its own attributes and characteristics. Among these languages are what are known as procedural fourth-generation interpretive languages. Programs written in such fourth-generation languages are not compiled, but rather are interpreted directly by a computer processor in the form in which they are written by a programmer, with the commands being executed by the processor based on the interpretation of the code written by the programmer. Such languages are typically easier in which to program than are languages which require compilation, and they are attractive because less programmer skill is required to write programs.
Programs written in procedural languages are executed linearly and are also known as command languages. The nature of procedural languages presents a barrier to some potential uses, because procedural programs typically cannot respond interactively to input from a user, but rather are restricted to being initiated through a command input by a user and then carrying out their programmed function to completion. While this type of performance is acceptable for certain functions or applications that computer users might want to have performed or carried out, such performance is not acceptable when users require object based event-driven programs which are reactive and capable of responding to any one of a variety of possible inputs/commands with the desired one of many possible functions or procedures. This requirement is the norm in user interface applications, and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in particular.
Attempts to make such fourth-generational procedural programs into event-driven applications have met with limited success. For example, one such technique has added a user interface module to the REXX (Restructured EXecutive eXecutor) fourth generational language which causes a user interface window to be displayed on a computer display device. However, this window merely permits a user to access a REXX procedural subroutine which continues until its processing is ended. Such single window modal user interfaces do not turn REXX programs or applications into the type of event driven programs or applications required by today's user interfaces, in which ease of use and a modeless design are prerequisites. For example, today's advanced GUIs permit users to customize or change them through working with the GUI. In contrast, the proposed modal REXX system would leave the user with the requirement of reprogramming the REXX subroutine itself in order to effect any change in the display of the window or in the function of the window.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a technique for converting or otherwise adapting fourth generation procedural language into event driven programs.


A sheet of the type of the present invention is disclosed by German Auslegeschrift 40 18 716. It is manufactured using a rubber-elastic mixture of special Shore A hardness of less than 85 which can be processed thermoplastically, and contains a thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU) and an ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA). The vinyl acetate (VA) content of the EVA is taught to be between 78 and 95% by weight. In the rubber-elastic mixture there should be 50 to 99% by weight of TPU and 1 to 50% by weight of EVA, wherein the sum of the percentages is equal to 100%. The mixture is used to produce molded objects and sheets which are soft and elastic, and are readily processed (that is, without sticking), yet they also have a high strength, a good elongation at break, a high abrasion resistance, and show little swelling in fuels and lubricants.
The VA content of the EVA materials which are presently commercially available is of the order of 40 percent by weight. These materials can be calendered. If such an EVA is used in a thermally-processible mixture in accordance with the information of the German Auslegeschrift 40 18 716, the resulting mixture cannot readily be processed into sheets by calendering because the melt strength is too low. Moreover, calendering of this mixture results in a sheet with unacceptable sticking qualities.
It is therefore an object of the invention to develop an improved thermoplastic material having the desirable properties of the material of German Auslegeschrift 40 18 716, as well as having the capability of being processed into sheets, for example, by calendering.


Tools exist for producing computer-implemented graphical models. Using the tools, models can be created, edited, and executed within a computing system. These models can then be translated into a high-level language program code, such as C, C++, Ada, Java, or Javascript which may then be compiled into an object code or executable code. The object code or executable code can then be run on computing hardware independent of the graphical modeling tools.
Current graphical modeling tools produce program codes that are generic in nature. For example, current tools may use program code that compiles or may be precompiled into object code or executable code which can be run on a wide variety of computing hardware. A single program code generated from a graphical model may compile into a single object code that may be run on, for example, an x086 Intel-type processor, an AMD-type processor, and a PowerPC-type processor. This generic single program code and the single object code the generic single program code compiles into may not be able to take advantage of specific performance enhancing features of these various processor types because the single program code was generated and compiled to run on all of these processor types.
Single program code compiled into the single object code may not achieve optimal or improvable performance on any computing hardware. Additionally, current graphical modeling tools may produce processor specific program code that may use processor-optimized function calls, inlined assembly code, or C/C++ language extensions in order to access the hardware specific optimization capabilities. For example, Simulink® and Real-Time Workshop® by The MathWorks, Inc. of Natick, Mass. (hereinafter “The MathWorks”) may provide target specific optimization capabilities for the C90 (ISO/IEC 9899:1990) and C99 (ISO/IEC 9899:1999) C-language standards as well as the GNU compiler tool chain. Additionally, target specific optimizations may be achieved with Simulink and Real-Time Workshop by creating a user-defined S-function block. However, these existing approaches may not be configurable, customizable or extensible through a documented API. Furthermore, their capability may be limited to predefined replacements and are not generally applied across all graphical modeling constructs.


1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a folding top for a vehicle.
2. Background Art
A known folding top is borne by front and rear convertible top bows. The top bows are movably supported on a vehicle and extend transverse to the longitudinal direction of the vehicle. A housing having an interior light is mounted on a side of the front top bow facing the passenger compartment of the vehicle.
DE 101 13 100 A1 describes a folding top having a flexible covering and a convertible top bow. The top bow holds the covering taut when the folding top is closed over a vehicle. The top bow has a rigid profile partly enclosing a hollow space. An opening in a boundary wall of the hollow space runs in the longitudinal direction of the top bow. An interior light is inserted into the opening to illuminate the passenger compartment of the vehicle.


The activities of a business or enterprise can be grouped into processes. Processes are business operations that are separated as desired and usually occur across business units. For example, the process of taking orders and turning those orders into revenue may be known as Order to Cash. The processes are comprised of sub-processes. For example, Order to Cash may be broken down into sub-processes such as Receive Order Inquiry, Provide Customer Quotation, Create Customer Outline Agreement, Create Sales Order, Schedule Production, Manufacture Product, Ship Product and Invoice Customer. Each sub-process may in turn be broken down into discrete activities such as providing customer number, entering that customer number, establishing pricing, determining a shipping date, etc.
The processes, sub-processes and activities operate, in part, by communicating information. For example, users may communicate through email. As another example, applications may communicate amongst themselves through electronic data interchange (“EDI”) and other similar services. Communication occurs horizontally, that is, among a process, sub-process and activities, as well as vertically, that is, between processes, sub-processes and activities.
Whether communications occur horizontally or vertically, among applications or users, communications are increasingly asynchronous or message based. That is, enterprise communications were formerly primarily synchronous, or connection oriented, in which a connection is established with prior coordination between communication end points with data then being transmitted over the connection. Enterprise communications are now increasingly asynchronous, or connectionless, transmitting data without prior coordination between communication end points, such as through “event based” communications which use messages to move data instead of large files.
Asynchronous or message based communications permit loosely coupled connections among and between systems because the end points do not have to be prepared to receive the data when the message is transmitted. Loosely coupled connections permit more flexibility in assembling processes. Flexibility in assembling processes is desirable in order to permit quick reaction to changing business conditions: if a particular sub-process or activity becomes unusable, the process can be reassembled with a new sub-process or activity. For example, if a Manufacture Product sub-process in the Order to Cash process at Widget Co. enterprise has a specific factory identified to manufacture the product and that factory has a fire or other disaster, making it unusable, Widget Co. will need to substitute a new factory. The ripple effect of that substitution among all of Widget Co.'s processes will change any number of parameters. A loosely coupled asynchronous connection among Widget Co.'s processes provides rapid substitution of the new factory for the old because the end points of communication to the new factory do not have to be predetermined before communications begin with the new factory. Thus, the flexibility of the asynchronous message based communication has permitted quick response to changing business conditions.
Despite this flexibility, asynchronous or message based communications are problematic because of their loosely coupled nature. At any given time, precise information on the progress of the processes is difficult to obtain—messages may be in transit and not instantly locatable. For example, if a customer calls for the status of an order, an enterprise customer service representative may be able to determine nothing more than the fact that the order has been received and that the scheduled ship date is X. There is often no ability to drill down into the information levels and review the status in more granularity, such as the location of the good, the manufacturing status, etc., because the information required to review that status is in transit and unable to be reviewed.
Of course, if the enterprise lacks the ability to access status information, business partners of the enterprise will similarly lack that ability. Thus, asynchronous communications may well increase inefficiency among business partners as well.
The difficulty in reporting caused by message based architecture also makes it difficult for the enterprise to measure the efficiency of its processes and their sub-process. Asynchronous messaging, with its indeterminate transmission of information, means a company may not be able to easily measure the interval between each sub-process, e.g. the time between Scheduling Production and the Manufacturing of a Product, and so easily measure the efficiency of their operations.
Finally, asynchronous messaging may provide an enterprise with an ability to model and simulate processes. That is, since information flows can be readily estimated through enterprises with asynchronous messaging, and processes can be easily modeled from those flows, asynchronous messaging modeling provides the potential to model and simulate processes. That potential is not realized with present technology, however. Moreover, since as described above, enterprises lack information on the processes they have implemented, the enterprises are handicapped in their ability to modify those processes or plan new processes. A modeling and simulation tool, demonstrating processes, sub-processes and their activity or granular detail level would be extremely helpful, and would give the enterprise an opportunity to assemble, test, adjust, and simulate processes and their details.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a tool for simulating message based architectures.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide monitoring capabilities for enterprise processes.


The present disclosure relates generally to a downhole nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) apparatus, data processing, and interpretation methods for evaluating a characteristic of a region, and particularly for detecting and quantifying a gas-bearing earth formation in a subterranean region.
NMR well logging is a technique used to investigate subterranean regions that may contain water, oil and/or gas reserves. The nuclei of chemical elements have a characteristic angular momentum (spin) and a magnetic moment, and by detecting and analyzing the reaction of the nuclei to applied magnetic fields, the characteristics of specific nuclei may be deduced. In the presence of an externally applied static magnetic field (B0), the nuclei spins become magnetized and align themselves parallel to the B0 field. By applying a radio frequency (RF) pulse train of a specific frequency to the magnetized nuclei, a pulsed RF magnetic field (B1) is generated that tips, or flips, the spins away from the direction of the B0 field. If the RF frequency (ω) substantially matches the condition for NMR (ω=γB0), where γ is the gyromagnetic ratio, then the first pulse (herein referred to as A pulse) reorients the magnetization to start precession and subsequent pulses (herein referred to as B pulses) generate spin-echo signals. A RF pulse sequence known as the CPMG (Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill) sequence is typically used for well logging.
At the end of an A pulse, the spins are oriented transverse to the B0 field and precess around the direction of the B0 field at the Larmor frequency (ω0=γB0), and the transverse magnetization dephases with a transverse relaxation time constant (T2), also known as the spin-spin relaxation time. Repeated tipping and relaxation of the spins results in the NMR spin-echo signal, which may then be detected and analyzed for oil and/or gas field exploration.
Existing methods use dual wait-time logs and the T1 contrast between gas and other formation fluids for gas detection and for gas saturation estimation. One such method is based on the assumption that water signals are fully polarized at both short and long wait time, TW, but gas signal is only partially polarized. So the difference between the two is contributed from gas only. However, if three phases coexist in the NMR detected sensitive volume, especially if slow relaxing water signal and light oil or oil-based mud filtrates are present in the formation, detection may be difficult or limited. Other methods for acquiring and processing multiple wait time data for T1 estimation employ improved log quality data using a summation of echoes approach, which is more useful if all of the partially polarized signal is gas. However, the certainty of the signal is reduced for discerning gas using this technique for wells drilled with OBM (oil based mud), and the subsequent invasion of the OBMF (oil based mud filtrate) into the sensitive volume, or for formations containing large-pore water or light oil. Thus skilled human interpretation is required in order to use existing art techniques. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a robust NMR detection and analysis method that overcomes these drawbacks.


In the consumer products industry, individual products are typically placed in large containers or cartons that are shipped to retail establishments such as supermarkets. When a shelf needs to be stocked with additional product, an employee usually brings a full carton to the shelf, opens it, price marks each product inside, and places them one-by-one on the shelf, which is very time consuming.
In many instances, retail establishments prefer shipping containers that can be converted into display trays. Advantages of display trays include being able to place many products on a shelf in one motion, and being able to stack several open trays in an aisle if shelf space is not available. One such shipping/display container is a bottom tray filled with product that is shrink-wrapped with a web of thermoplastic film. The container can be opened by puncturing and unwrapping the film which is then discarded. However, most thermoplastic films are not biodegradable and therefore present an environmental concern.
One well-known type of shipping carton that can be converted into a display tray has printed instructions to circumferentially slice the carton's sidewalls along a dotted or dashed line with a knife, razor, or other sharp instrument. In opening the carton in this fashion, it is very easy to accidentally cut too deeply through the carton's walls and into the individual products inside the carton. If the product is solid or granular such as laundry detergent, the damage is generally confined to the outermost packages which, although messy and expensive, is not as catastrophic as slicing into individual containers that house a liquid such as dishwashing detergent. In addition, using a sharp instrument to cut open a carton poses a safety concern.
Others have identified the above-described problems associated with opening shipping cartons with a knife and have proposed various alternatives. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,850,363, which issued to Jacobs on Nov. 26, 1974, discloses a shipping carton having a rip cord circumferentially attached to the interior surface of the carton's side walls. Pulling the rip cord tears the carton's side walls and separates the carton into a top section and a bottom section. However, this general type of easy-open shipping carton has been found to be unacceptable for two major reasons; first, if the carton is made of corrugated paperboard and the rip cord is positioned perpendicular to the corrugated flutes, a very large pulling force is needed to split the carton walls; and second, it is nearly impossible to split the carton walls along a straight line which results in a mutilated bottom tray that is substantially weakened and unattractive and therefore generally unacceptable for display purposes.
In light of the above, a major object of the present invention is to provide a shipping container or carton that can be readily opened without having to use a knife or other sharp instrument.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a shipping container or carton that can be readily split along a pre-selected line into a top section and a bottom section, the latter being useful as an attractive display tray having a straight and smooth upper edge.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a high-speed manufacturing method of making blanks that are used in erecting shipping containers of the present invention.
Another object of the present invention is to provide blanks that can be erected into shipping containers by using conventional machinery.
These and other objects, advantages, and novel features of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description with reference to the drawings and appended claims.


Many catalytic processes are carried out in reactors which contain a series of separated catalytic beds. In such processes frequently mixing means, such as quench boxes, are disposed between beds. The purpose of the quench boxes is to provide rapid and efficient mixing of the fluid steams being processed in the reactor with a cooler fluid stream supplied from an external source thereby controlling the temperature of the process stream coming into contact with the catalyst in the next succeeding catalyst bed. As will be readily appreciated, the better the mixing, the better the temperature and reaction control and, hence, the better the overall reactor performance.
Examples of interzone mixing devices can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,143,581, U.S. Pat. No. 3,480,407, U.S. Pat. No. 3,502,445, U.S. Pat. No. 3,705,016, U.S. Pat. No. 3,723,072, U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,961, U.S. Pat. No. 3,895,919, U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,847 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,836,989. Some of these devices are complicated. Some are prone to plugging. Some really need a relatively large space to provide the desirable degree of mixing.
In copending application Ser. No. 284,050 filed Dec. 14, 1988, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,960,571 there is described a quench assembly that provides a significant improvement over known quench boxes. Notwithstanding, the improvements achieved by that device, in today's competitive processing industry there is a need to constantly seek further improvement. It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a device for thoroughly mixing in the space between two reaction zones, a stream of fluid supplied from an external source with the main process stream fluid.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a device for efficiently mixing a relatively minor amount of fluid with a relatively major amount of fluid, especially in an interzone space. These and other objects are achieved by the novel device herein described and claimed.


A time-slotted channel hopping (“TSCH”) network can be defined by IEEE 802.15.4 and provide a communications network for resource providers (e.g., utility companies, home automation providers, industrial automation providers, or scientific and environmental application providers). A home area network may be used to communicate information between devices that consume resources (e.g., electricity) in a home or other premises and devices that monitor and/or manage the consumption of resources. Utility companies and other resource providers may use home area networks to monitor consumption of the resources by consumers.
Utility companies and resource providers may operate on a time synchronized network, while a home area network may operate on a separate network that is not synchronized to the time synchronized network. Devices on the home area network may be idle for periods of time and communicate with the utility companies and resource providers intermittently.


(1) Field of the Invention.
The present invention relates to the crushing or digesting of used fluorescent tubes. More particularly the present invention relates to an improved rotatable crushing blade and the method of using such blade for the effective crushing of used fluorescent tubes into substantially uniform sized pieces of glass or pieces of glass within a uniform range of sizes prior to separating the glass and various potentially toxic materials contained within the interior of the fluorescent tubes from each other. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved shape of a fluorescent tube fracturing blade and a range of speeds for operation of such blade which provides the desired results, i.e. the desired separation of the fractured glass particulates and the toxic powder and other substances contained originally within the fluorescent tubes.
(2) Discussion of the Prior Art.
Fluorescent light tubes are formed from elongated, cylindrical or tubular glass receptacles which are charged with mercury or other conductive vapors. The inside surface of the tube is coated with a fluorescent coating of some form such as phosphorus itself or other phosphor powders such as antimony, beryllium, cadmium and strontium compounds plus in some cases, lead and the like. Mercury vapor as well as beryllium, strontium, lead and cadmium are well known as potentially toxic materials as are other phosphor powders with which the inside of the fluorescent tube may be coated. Older fluorescent tubes often use high concentrations of beryllium powders, but this has been in general superseded in more recent fluorescent tubes by cadmium-type powder.
Since fluorescent tubes are, in general, bulky and unsatisfactory for disposal without treatment, it has become customary to crush them into small pieces by various means and then dispose of the fractured pieces. Merely fracturing the tube itself into small pieces for disposal, however, is not very satisfactory because of the potentially toxic nature of the dust and vapor originally confined inside the fluorescent tube. Such potentially toxic particulates, which occur mostly in the form of small dust particles plus mercury vapor and small drops or beads of mercury, can be quite detrimental if they escape to the environment.
In previous applications filed by the present Applicant, methods and means for crushing fluorescent tubes and then separating the fractured glass particulates from the potentially toxic materials contained within the original tube have been disclosed. Such methods and apparatus are based on an air separation effected between the glass particulates and the smaller toxic powders and vapors contained within the original fluorescent tubes. In particular, in accordance with such previous inventions, the fractured fluorescent tube materials are exposed to a rapidly moving body of gas such as stripping air, preferably passing countercurrently with such particulates. In this way the smaller, lighter dust and mercury vapor is carried away to a recovery system while the glass particulates are removed from the system for recycling to glass manufacturers and the like. In order to provide such separation, it is important that the glass particulates not be crushed too small so that they will have sufficient weight such that they will not be carried away by the stripping gas together with the small toxic powder particles.
In Applicant's U.S. application Ser. No. 458,177 filed Dec. 28, 1989 a flat, rapidly rotating blade was disclosed for fracturing fluorescent tubes thrust down a feed chute into the path of the rotating blade. The blade, upon striking the fluorescent tube, fractured such tube into small particles and these were then conveyed by gravity and other means through a system while separating toxic powder from the surfaces both by gravity processes and particularly by countercurrent air flow or gas stripping processes. As indicated above, it is important in crushing the glass that the pieces not be too small such that they may be carried away with countercurrent stripping air, nor should such pieces of glass be too large or they will not only not pack efficiently, but will also not have their surfaces exposed efficiently for transportation through the stripping air for stripping away of the toxic powder normally adhering to the original inside surface of the fluorescent tube. It is highly desirable, therefore, that the glass particles be of fairly uniform size and shape. It is also desirable, since glass is a very hard substance which rapidly wears away even fairly hard steel, for the rotating crushing blade to have a configuration and composition which will be durable and wear-resistant.
It has long been known to provide apparatus for generally breaking or crushing glassware, and particularly glass bottles and the like to reduce their bulk and more recently, it has also been widely suggested that fluorescent tubes be fractured into their constituent pieces for more convenient disposal as well as, in some cases, recovery of the components of the tubes. Among apparatus provided for crushing glass, and, of late, particularly fluorescent tubes, may be mentioned the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,185,352 issued Jan. 2, 1940 to C. F. Peters discloses an early type of glass fracturing device for fracturing bottles. The fracturing device in the Peters patent is a pivoted hammer-type arrangement.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,538,255 issued Jun. 26, 1951 to N. E. Johnson et al. discloses a remote control glass breaking machine in which bottles in particular are slid down a tube where they intercept a horizontally rotating motor driven fracturing blade comprised essentially of a rotating backing having slightly curved forward hammer surfaces which rapidly strike the bottle, pulverizing it by repeated blows. The hammer surface shown has a sharp edge on one side and is somewhat like a cleaver blade.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,593,657 issued Apr. 22, 1952 to A. J. Coon et al. discloses a reciprocating-type crusher designed to crush fluorescent tubes and the like. The Coon et al. crusher involves reciprocating two opposed crushing surfaces relatively towards each other with a fluorescent tube between them, said reciprocating surfaces being moved by means of a rotating cam arrangement. There is no rotating fracture blade per se.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,620,988 issued Dec. 9, 1952 to E. H. Telier discloses a fluorescent tube chopping device including a rotating fracture blade or "star shaped breaking wheel" which progressively breaks off the end of a fluorescent tube during the fracturing operation. Each arm of the fracture blade appears to have a substantially flat striking face.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,628,036 issued Feb. 10, 1953 to J. B. Hall discloses a fluorescent lamp disposal arrangement including a rotating hammer-type arrangement for fracturing the fluorescent tubes. The rotating hammers, which are contained in a circular fracture chamber, are pivoted upon the outer circumference of a rotating disk.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,866,604 issued Dec. 30, 1958 to J. B. Hall discloses a fluorescent tube disposal device including a rotating breaker arm.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,333,777 issued Aug. 1, 1967 to C. W. Highfill et al. discloses a grinding mill which, although it is not designed for the fracturing of glass or fluorescent tubes, does disclose a series of flat blades arranged for progressively striking rocks and the like within a grinding chamber and in which fine dust is carried away.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,756 issued Nov. 21, 1967 to D. J. Morgenson discloses a horizontally rotating hammer blade, into the path of which glassware such as bottles are dropped. The blade is rotated at a high speed such as 1700 rpm's so that a bottle dropped into the spinning blades may be struck as many as sixty times for each second the bottle remains in the contact zone. The blades of Morgenson are more like chopping blades than impact blades since they strike the bottles on their edge rather than on their flat side.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,655,138 issued Apr. 11, 1972 to G. A. Luscombe discloses a multi-blade bottle or other glassware breaking device. The chopping blades comprise a series of fairly thin blades mounted in a stack, flat against each other to form a composite blade having in effect a number of knife blades sticking out from a central core at various points, which blades upon rotation of the central core strike anything passing by.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,889,886 issued Jun. 17, 1975 to J. D. Spivey discloses a bottle breaking device including a series of edgewise rotating blades journaled on a transverse shaft. There are also a series of transverse stationary blades extending across the chopper and forming a grating between which the rotating blades pass during rotation. In effect, glass material has to be chopped within a size range which will slip down through the grating before it can pass beyond the chopping blades.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,849 issued Oct. 21, 1975 to I. M. Atanasoff et al. discloses a fluorescent tube digester or breaker in which the breaking of the fluorescent tubes is accomplished by a double bladed knife rotating horizontally next to the tube inlet.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,540 issued Oct. 8, 1985 to A. Nakamura discloses a fluorescent tube breaking device in which the tubes are broken by rotating fracture blades which rotate edgewise on a shaft in cooperation with a number of other blades and catch the fluorescent tube against a series of stationary blades mounted effectively between the rotating blades. The arrangement is substantially similar to the Spivey patent cited above.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,287 issued Apr. 1, 1986 to W. E. Brown discloses a fluorescent tube fracturing device including a pair or plurality of flailing chains attached to a rotating disk. Both the disk and the chains rotate horizontally and intercept a vertically inserted fluorescent tube.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,798 issued Aug. 26, 1986 to K. F. Odlin discloses a lamp crushing apparatus having a special allegedly non-jamming crushing blade which takes the form of a plurality of surface compartments in a drum section into which compartments or pockets formed between vanes at the surface of the drum the lamps are inserted, crushing said lamps into more or less equal, discrete quantities of fractured glass.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,404 issued Apr. 7, 1987 to J. W. Deklerow discloses a fluorescent tub chopping apparatus in which the tubes are inserted into the path of a rotating chopping means formed from a pair of flails comprised of rectangularly shaped bars secured to a central rotating plate by hooks. The tube to be fractured is inserted past the horizontally rotating flails.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,786,000 issued Nov. 22, 1988 to E. P. Weil et al. discloses a bottle breaking apparatus comprising a pneumatic ram with a central punch and a following plate which fractures the bottle against a V-shaped supporting wall. It is said the device does not form as many small particles of glass which may be difficult to recycle. The plate is deliberately not completely advanced against the bottle to avoid crushing said bottle into small pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,883 issued Apr. 11, 1989 to E. P. Weil et al. uses the same pneumatic punch and following plate to crush glass bottles as the prior Weil patent and in addition provides an angular support wall in the rear that does not support the bottle in the center and increases its shattering.
While the above devices have generally been effective to fracture fluorescent tubes as well as other glass materials and other compositions of materials into small pieces, such blades generally have not been effective to provide a uniform fracturing of the tubes.


The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for performing an infrared treatment, and more particularly, to methods and apparatuses for performing an infrared treatment on extruded plastic and elastomeric products in an infrared oven.
It is known in the prior art to heat plastic or elastomeric product that comes out of the extruder to cross-link the plastic or elastomeric product to obtain a desired effect that changes the capabilities or properties of the product (e.g., increases the strength of the product, changes the product to a solid, etc.). Furthermore, it is known to perform this heating of plastic or elastomeric product using infrared radiation and to use a wavelength of the radiation that penetrates inside the wall of the product in such a way that the heating takes place at the same time in all the depths of the product.
One prior art method is disclosed in patent publication GB 2283 489. In this patent publication, the material is cross-linked by using infrared radiation in such a way that the temperature obtained by the radiation corresponds to the wavelength demanded by the cross-linkage reaction.
A similar prior art method is presented in the patent publication FI 109706. According to this method, an additional material or additive that is used for modifying either physically or chemically the properties of the plastic material is decomposed utilizing infrared radiation, wherein the wavelength is selected so that the radiation penetrates through the plastic material itself as efficiently as possible, but is also absorbed by the additional material, thereby heating and decomposing the additional material.
The greatest disadvantage of the prior art methods is that the infrared radiation inevitably consists of a distribution of different wavelengths. It is also inevitable that a part of this wavelength distribution follows approximately part of the curve of Gauss, and the wavelength distribution has rays of long wavelengths that do not penetrate into the material. Rather, the long wavelengths get absorbed by the surface of the product, causing inconvenient overheating of the product. Overheating causes the surface of the product to become oxidized or to react in some other unwanted way.
Attempts have been made to solve this problem. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,106,761 (“the '761 patent”) addresses these issues by eliminating the infrared rays that correspond to absorption peaks of the material to be heated in order to minimize overheating of a surface of the material. The '761 patent notes that eliminating these rays may be accomplished by filtering out the unwanted rays. The filtering process disclosed in the '761 patent is very difficult to undertake because, when filtering out certain wavelengths, the filter itself gets overheated and becomes a source of infrared energy that sends the same filtered wavelength to the material, thus overheating the material.
One solution that attempts to avoid the overheating caused by filtering is cooling of the surface of the material during the infrared treatment. This can be done, for example, by blowing cool gas, like air, on the material. The greatest disadvantage of this method is that the air also cools the infrared lamps and reduces the capacity of the lamps. Another disadvantage is that dirt and other debris splashes from the material to the lamps and, thus, the lamps get dirty, which again reduces the capacity of the lamps.
It is very important for the irradiated material to be heated uniformly across an entire cross-section of the material. A method and apparatus for performing an infrared treatment, for example, on plastic and elastomeric products, that overcomes all of the previous obstacles and that uniformly heats the product is therefore desired.


In the related art, an image forming apparatus can perform printing using a color material that may be decolorized (decolorable material) and a color material that cannot be decolorized (non-decolorable material).
Such an image forming apparatus typically receives a print job from a printing processing device such as a personal computer, for example, and forms an image based on the received print job. The print job is usually generated by a printer driver executed in the printing processing device.


Multi-processor systems employ two or more computer processors that can communicate with each other, such as over a bus or a general interconnect network. In such systems, each processor may have its own memory cache (or cache store) that is separate from the main system memory that the individual processors can access. Cache memory connected to each processor of the computer system can often enable fast access to data. Caches are useful because they tend to reduce latency associated with accessing data on cache hits, and they work to reduce the number of requests to system memory. In particular, a write-back cache enables a processor to write changes to data in the cache without simultaneously updating the contents of memory. Modified data can be written back to memory at a later time.
Coherency protocols have been developed to ensure that whenever a processor reads a memory location, the processor receives the correct or true data. Additionally, coherency protocols help ensure that the system state remains deterministic by providing rules to enable only one processor to modify any part of the data at any one time. If proper coherency protocols are not implemented, however, inconsistent copies of data can be generated.
There are two main types of cache coherency protocols, namely, a directory-based coherency protocol and a broadcast-based coherency protocol. A directory-based coherency protocol associates tags with each memory line. The tags can contain state information that indicates the ownership or usage of the memory line. The state information provides a means to track how a memory line is shared. Examples of the usage information can be whether the memory line is cached exclusively in a particular processor's cache, whether the memory line is shared by a number of processors, or whether the memory line is currently cached by any processor.
A broadcast-based coherency protocol employs no tags. Instead, in a broadcast-based coherency protocol, each of the caches monitors (or snoops) requests to the system. The other caches respond by indicating whether a copy of the requested data is stored in the respective caches. Thus, correct ownership and usage of the data are determined by the collective responses to the snoops.


As a method of increasing a capacity of an optical disc, there are a method of increasing a recording density and a multilayering method. Further, as a method of increasing the recording density, there are a method of decreasing a channel bit length, that is, a mark length, and increasing the density in a linear-density direction and a method of narrowing a track pitch. However, if the density is increased in the linear-density direction, a problem in which inter-symbol interference is increased occurs. Further, if the track pitch is narrowed, leak-in (adjacent track crosstalk) of information from an adjacent track is increased, and quality required for a tracking error signal and a characteristic required for a tracking servo are degraded.
Methods for reducing the adjacent track crosstalk (hereinafter simply referred to as “crosstalk”) have been proposed. Techniques of reducing influence of the crosstalk by spatially splitting reflected light from an optical recording medium into three in a track width direction, detecting each of the three into which the light is split, multiplying (weighting) the detection signal by a constant, and performing an addition operation are disclosed in Patent Literatures 1 and 2. Further, a technique capable of emphasizing and reproducing a reproduction signal of a small recording mark by further performing weighting in a beam traveling direction has been suggested in Patent Literature 1 as an idea.
Further, in the case of multilayering, in order to secure a sufficient recording light amount and a reproducing light amount for each layer, it is effective to keep coupling efficiency of an optical system high using only one beam in an outward path. A push-pull technique (abbreviated as a “PP technique”) has been known since the past as a method of detecting a tracking error using only one beam in an optical disc device which performs recording and/or reproducing on an optical disc having a groove structure on an optical disc recording surface, and an advanced push-pull technique (abbreviated as “APP technique”) disclosed in Patent Literature 3 and the like have been known as a method of suppressing an offset of a tracking error signal obtained by the push-pull technique which is caused by scrolling of an objective lens. In the case of a one-beam PP technique, the offset of the tracking error signal occurs at a boundary portion between an already recorded region (referred to as a “recorded region”) and a region in which recording is not performed yet (referred to as a “non-recorded region”). The offset in the recording boundary occurs when a reflectance distribution of the recording boundary is asymmetric to a track, and it becomes an amplitude grating with a period coarser than that of a track and diffracts a light beam collected on an optical disc.
Due to the occurrence of the offset, a recording characteristic and a reproducing characteristic deteriorate, and in the least favorable case, a tracking servo is not performed. In order to suppress such an offset, a technique of performing focus control such that an offset amount of a tracking error signal is adjusted so that a level of the tracking error signal in a track jump state becomes an intermediate level between a peak level and a bottom level is disclosed in Patent Literature 4.
Further, techniques of detecting a tilt of a recording medium on the basis of light intensity of an interference region between 0th-order light and 1st-order diffracted light are disclosed in Patent Literatures 5 and 6.


White LEDs (light-emitting diodes) are devices that emits white light in combination of a semiconductor light-emitting device and a phosphor and a typical known example thereof is a combination of a blue LED and a YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) yellow phosphor. However, YAG phosphors, which contain a smaller amount of red light-emitting component, have problems that they are inferior in color rendering properties for use in illumination application, and lose their color reproducibility when used as a backlight for image display devices such as liquid-crystal display devices.
As a method for improving the color rendering properties of white LEDs, proposed was a method of compensating the red component by using a YAG phosphor and a red light-emitting nitride-based phosphor in combination (see Patent Document 1). It is also known that, among red light-emitting nitride-based phosphors, CaAlSiN3-based nitrides or oxynitride materials that contain an inorganic compound having a crystalline structure identical with CaAlSiN3 crystalline phase as the host crystal and additionally an optically active element, in particular Eu, as the emission center emit orange to red light particularly at high brightness (see Patent Document 2).
It is possible to produce the CaAlSiN3-based nitride phosphor by using a mixture of the nitrides of the elements constituting the phosphor (see Patent Document 3). In the production method for a phosphor described in Patent Document 3, a phosphor is produced by mixing nitrides of the elements constituting the phosphor and calcining the mixture obtained in a calcination furnace, using nitrogen gas as the atmospheric gas.